Seventeen years ago I was given the great honor and responsibility of succeeding Frank Oski, the founding editor-in-chief of Contemporary Pediatrics. The original Editorial Board and contributors of Contemporary Pediatrics included some of the most dedicated educators and clinicians in the country, and many of them, through their work on the magazine as well as in their roles as educators generally, continued to inform, provoke, challenge, and befriend pediatricians right up until their deaths-deaths that came much too early for Joseph St. Geme Jr, Frank Oski, Walter Tunnessen, and Caroline Hall.