There is not, Bob. And if the first post is deleted, the entire thread goes. I'm afraid that may have happened when I tried to fix Chris' wedding announcement. Somehow my post responding to his announcement got first billing as OP, by the clock timing. I believe when he fixed the rotated photo, the edit time shifted the posts out of sequence. That should not happen and is likely a bug in the software. I could be wrong, but the thread was MIA last I looked, and I apologize to Chris. I wish he would repost his announcement and picture.
Perhaps we could simply change the user name on a person who is not here any more, and thus leave the information intact. Or at least the responses to an OP if they leave. And we can edit any post that should be, without deleting it.