Sandra Spieker Ringo

September 2026 Bug Up Your Ass Award Winner

 

The Bug That Cleared Probate

Well, it has been five years since we've had a deserving winner of the coveted Bug Up Your Ass Award. We were beginning to think the damn bug had finally died.

David, of course, had his own history with the BUYA. He received one in February 2018, an indignity he never seemed particularly grateful to us for bestowing upon him.

Then, in late June, David received the cancer prognosis that forced him to begin thinking about not those classmates who suffered from illeness or who had died recently but himself. In his first post about the diagnosis, David rather loudly summarized the situation:

“WTF?”

An entirely reasonable response.

Among the practical matters requiring attention was the future of rhs1969.net. When Sandra learned how seriously ill David was, she reached out to him. David explained that he needed a co-administrator and asked her to consider taking on the responsibility. Sandra agreed to do so meaning that she might some day assume the role David had held since 2014.

There was some history here. Sandra was a professional web designer who had volunteered her technical skills to help David create rhs1969.net and remained his co-administrator for years. Tommy and Sandra also talked often, exchanged countless emails, and became good friends. Then, in 2018, Sandra committed what David might reasonably have regarded as an act of administrative treason: she used her access to rhs1969.net to provide Tommy with resources he needed to seed Punography. That ended her first tenure as David's co-administrator.

Eight years later, in late June 2026, Sandra returned as David's co-administrator. And this time she agreed to the arrangement but only if David agreed to keep it under wraps.

Keep it under wraps?

So when Tommy called Sandra in July, concerned that David hadn't arranged for anyone to take over the website, Sandra assured him that she knew nothing about it and wanted absolutely nothing to do with it. Only in mid-September after David died did she confess to Tommy personally that she had approached David, that he had asked her to become his co-administrator, and that she had agreed on the condition of secrecy.

Tommy laughed. Having spent months denying to perfectly good friends that he was Sue Daly, he was hardly in a position to object to a little strategic dishonesty. Sometimes the deception is essential to the enterprise.

There was, however, one small difference. Sandra knew what she had discussed with David in late June. She didn't know what Tommy had discussed with David prior to that. And we're going to leave it that way.

In retrospect, all of us, in spite of the high esteem in which we held him, underestimated David. Let me explain.

After Sandra succeeded David as decider-in-chief of rhs1969.net, things started getting really peculiar. I had been unable to get back onto rhs1969.net before David died, and I remained unable to get back on afterward, even with Sandra now at the helm.

WTF?

Lance wasn't getting anywhere either. Phone calls and emails went unanswered. Meanwhile, Sandra continued stopping by Punography to see what was happening over here. Nothing conclusive, of course. The Directors are trained professionals and do not diagnose a bug prematurely.

Then Lance politely asked Sandra and her new co-conspirator... er, sorry, co-administrator, Lowell, to reinstate the classmates who had been removed from rhs1969.net and to discourage the snubs and slights that had developed among classmates. Sandra responded that his request had been “received and considered,” that there would be “no change” in the access decisions, and thanked him for "respecting the decision".

Well, shit. I know I've heard that voice before.

Still, the Directors were reluctant to rush to judgment. This is, after all, the first BUYA in five years, and there are standards—as low as they are—to maintain.

Then Sandra provided the clinical confirmation herself. Sandra had told me that she didn't really know Steve Gardner. Steve and I met in first grade in 1957, became close friends in high school, created Punography with the other Directors, lived together in Austin, and remained friends for the next sixty-nine years.

So when information became available to both Sandra and me about Steve's Celebration of Life, Sandra thoughtfully extended her new duties at rhs1969.net to Punography and posted the announcement here just as I was about to do so myself.

That settled it. The bug had cleared probate.

Sandra, of all the things David could have left you, why in God's name did he leave you his bug?

And that's when it occurred to me that perhaps we had been looking at this backward. Sandra had indeed inherited David's bug. But what if David knew exactly what he was doing when he chose his successor?

Think about it. David knew Sandra very well. He also knew me very well. He knew the history between us, including Sandra's earlier act of administrative treason. And when Sandra approached him in late June, perhaps he recognized an opportunity neither of us fully appreciated.

But there was an exquisite problem with the plan. David knew he wouldn't be here to see how it ended. He didn't need to be. He knew I would eventually figure it out. And, worse yet, he knew me well enough to know that when I did, I'd recognize the quality of the craftsmanship.

And suddenly I realized I'd been asking the wrong question.

Too soon?

Apparently, for David, it's never too late. You finally got me, my friend.

Nicely played, David. Nicely played.

Even in the wake of the tremendous sadness of losing him, I smile knowing that my old friend got the last laugh. And somewhere, I hope Steve Gardner is reading this and laughing his ass off, knowing he had beaten me just as David had—definitively.

And so, following five years of distinguished inactivity, the Punography Ltd. Directors take great pleasure in formally announcing the restoration of one of Punography's most venerable institutions: the coveted Bug Up Your Ass Award.

It is therefore with considerable ceremony, appropriate solemnity, and the unanimous approval of the Directors that we welcome our esteemed friend Sandra Spieker Ringo into the illustrious company of previous honorees David Cordell, Lance Cantor, Kurt Fischer, Jim Bedwell, Hollis Heyn (sorry, Hollis C. Heyn), and the entire Texas Legislature.

May she wear this distinction with the dignity it so richly deserves.

And Sandra, unlike certain other class websites we could mention, Punography remains open to all our classmates, including you. We wouldn't dream of depriving you of the opportunity to read your award.

So to Sandra we say, “Booyah! You need a lot of drinks!”