In the early afternoon of January 21 a telephone call from the SIO National Office in the United States brought the incomprehensible message that our Monty is no more among us. Within a few hours this shocking news has spreadfrom the Editorial Office throughout the world. From Japan to Canada, from United States to Britain, from Germany to Holland, the leading odonatologists and the SIO Officers became speachless. With Monty's departure an epoch in odonatology came to a sudden conclusion... This epoch was characterized by the activities of our Society, the very roots of which are firmly anchored in Monty’s life-long philosophy of a "united odonatological community". Neither the International Odonatological Society, nor this or any other of its journals could ever have gained ground without Monty’s pioneer work in organizing the international odonatological community around his famous Purdue Colloquia of Odonatology, and, above all, through his S ELY SI A, the first truly international newsletter of Odonatology. In this, and in many other ways, Monty is the true "Father of SIO”.