Hank Stewart

Hank Stewart is a freelance photographer, who makes his first appearance in Legion of Lawndale Heroes 11.5, 'Don't Let Me Get Me'.

Meeting the Legionnaires

A handsome man who spent a tour of duty in the U.S. Navy as a photographer working with USO tours, Hank came out and began to cover the celebrity world. Surprisingly, Hank's sense of ethics (he firmly stands by his belief that even the most famous of celebrities deserve to have some right to privacy and won't interfere with or photograph some things) have won him a reputation as a 'celebrity photographer' rather than as a 'paparazzi'.

Hank was hired to travel to Grace Island at the request of Val herself after being informed by Dawn Hall that the Legionnaires would be undergoing 'survival training' there. Per his agreement with 'Val' magazine, they paid his transportation fees, and if he took photos worth anything, he held full rights to their usage - but the magazine was allowed 'first-bid' rights to said photos. Upon arriving in Anchorage, Alaska, Hank was given the services of Langston Chambers as his travel guide (and was also asked by her employer to take 'cheesecake' photos of the lovely young woman for publicity purposes). There was an immediate attraction between the two (mainly on the part of Hank), but nothing was to immediately become of it.

On the second day of his Alaskan adventure, Hank and Langston came across three Legionnaires - Daria, Brittany and Stacy, who were in the middle of their Outlast training session. Daria was accidentally knocked into the waters of a cold stream by Stacy, who reacted to the sound of Hank's camera, and immediately reacted to capture the two (who were immediately made aware of Stacy's 'unusual' strength levels when she lifted both in the air with a single hand each.

The photos that Hank took of Daria after she was retrieved from the waters by her fellow Legionnaires (including several see-through shots that displayed Daria's body through her water-soaked clothes) would later be sold to Val Magazine for a fee rumored to be in the high six figures. Overall, the photos Hank took during his trip of the Legionnaires netted him fees in excess of 4.5 million dollars.

Dinner and Drinks

Hank and Langston spent the night at the Legionnaires' camp on Grace Island, where they talked to him about Legion activities. In particular, he was impressed with Tom Sloane's knowledge of National Legion activities, as well as Quinn's stories of her covert trip to New Orleans with National Legion members who went in to help with post-Hurricane Katrina relief efforts. Later, he went off with Tom and Charles Ruttheimer to talk about the ladies in their lives, as well as have drinks from the bottle of Pusser's Rum that he had brought along. (He also wanted to get Charles away from Langston, who had paid absolutely no attention to him after meeting the boy.)

Later Years

It has been revealed that, at least fifty years later, Hank and Langston married and had both children and grandchildren, one of the latter being a seventeen-year-old girl who looks very much like Langston, but without the brains or common sense. It is alluded that the two settled in Alaska at some point in their marriage, but stayed in very close contact with the Legionnaires, to the point that they are honorary Legionnaires themselves. (Hank possesses a ring, which he prizes dearly, that might be a Legion flight ring.)

Hank and his family regularly participate in the annual Heroes Day celebration in Alaska, and Hank's experiences and knowledge led him to write a book on the Legion. That book, Chapter Number One, is considered to be (along with Inside the Tower and The Collected Diaries of Anastasia Rowe, Legionnaire) one of the definitive books on the Lawndale chapter of the Legion.