Johnathan Terry Leonard’s original college major was architecture. He dreamed of designing grand hotels and extravagant casinos, but his many life experiences would ultimately reveal to him his true calling as a schoolteacher. And although his pursuit of a Bachelor of Science degree in education at Tarleton State University was truncated by his transition from this life to the next in 2020, those who knew him best have no doubt that he was embarking on what would have been an exemplary teaching career. Proof of this theory can be found in the fact that prior to his transition from this life he was not only regularly honing his teaching skills working as an emergency or guest teacher at local schools, but also teaching the fundamentals of basketball; a sport at which he himself excelled in at the private high school he attended; to teams on which his two children played.
Johnathan’s life exemplified the ideas that the greatest teachers lead by example and the greatest leaders lead by serving others. Always the consummate selfless giver, even in death, Johnathan, as an organ and tissue donor saved or at least extended the lives of at least three different transplant recipients. And it was his realization that God was both the giver of and the keeper of his soul which instilled in him his love of giving. This quintessential quality was exemplified not only to his children, his parents, his younger brothers, his nephews and niece, but he was also the smile and the personality that always lit up the room to his numerous cousins, friends, associates, university classmates, and to his students. Perhaps this is why, although he may have never preached a formal sermon, his life was an amazing sermon in itself to all who knew him, of God’s amazing grace and enduring love.
