Wayne’s daughter just called me and informed me he passed away this AM. I have no details at this time. Wayne made the lives of everyone he touched better, especially mine.
This could be a very sad thread.
However, I think Wayne was always quick with a joke and I think he would have preferred a thread celebrating the happy times.
At SN-VI he was the back room pairing chief for two sections including a 484 player section and another section with somewhere between 100 and 200 players. (5575 players and 12 pairing chiefs would average 464 players per pairing chief).
uschess.org/assets/msa_jooml … 05149762.3
At one point he stood up and asked all of the other pairing chiefs if anybody wanted to trade for a 484 player section (saying “not you” when the pairing chief of the 521 player section looked up).
This makes me so sad. He is directly responsible for me getting opportunities to work national events. Great TD. And an even better guy.
Back before the 75-move rule was put in place there was a game that was running forever with the players just continuing with the delay well after the scheduled start of the final round. After a couple hundred moves one of the players said plaintively to his opponent “is this a draw?” and Wayne seized on that as a draw claim and upheld it due to the thousand-move rule (to the amusement of the dozens of watching players waiting for the game to finish so that the round could be paired - saying it that way was more amusing than referring to the fifty-move rule).
Wayne always did anything reasonably necessary to start a round on time and to minimize the delay if that wasn’t possible.
Sad news, indeed. Wayne was an outstanding TD, great person, and a very good friend. May he rest in peace…
Services for Wayne Clark will be Sunday November 28th from 2-4 at Strang Funeral Home, Grayslake Illinois.
I had the honor and pleasure of working with Wayne at several national events. An excellent TD, and a great person.
He will be missed by many.
Thanks for the Funeral Home information, Tim. I went to his Obituary’s Announcement page and it says to “In lieu of flowers, please consider donations to the US Chess organization’s youth scholarship.” which I have done. Once again, we are going to miss him tremendously. May he rest in peace…