Name the Fund

At this post from the other day, we gave an update as to the status of John's scholarship fund. One of the things to accomplish during the next several weeks is to come up with a permanent name for the fund.

By way of background, the nickname for Mother Catherine Spalding School is the Pelicans. As such, one of the names we were contemplating for the fund is "John's Pelican Technology Fund" aka "John's Pel Tech." This captures the essence of John's love of technology and harkens back to his alma mata, VA Tech, to which he remained connected to the end.

Let us know what you think by posting a comment to this entry, to include any alternative suggestions you may have.

The Gift of Stories & Photos

Today, John's earliest best friend, Joe, along with his wife, dropped by for a visit. They brought with them photos of John we had not seen before, and even better, stories of John we had not heard. It was a wonderful gift to be shared, and we are so grateful. Some of the pictures are here.

Return to Machu Picchu

One of the most exhilarating things John did in his life was to hike up the Andes to Machu Picchu, a pre-Columbian Inca site located at 7,970 ft above sea level on a mountain ridge in Peru. Often referred to as "The Lost City of the Incas", Machu Picchu was built around the year 1450 and abandoned a hundred years later, at the time of the Spanish conquest. By clicking on the email to the left, you can read in his own words how this adventure impacted John.

Several month ago, Chris, who was an intern in John's Dad's office this summer, spent some time in South America. While there, he too hiked to Machu Picchu and, as you can see, brought with him John's picture. This is yet one more way how not only John's picture, but his overall life continues to be compelling.

John's Scholarship Fund Update

One of the purposes of this blog is to keep John's family and friends up to date with respect to the status of the scholarship fund established in his memory. This fund has become a truly fitting tribute to John. To date, almost $51,000.00 has been contributed and donations still periodically arrive, especially during the season of holiday giving. We anticipate considerably more will be available once the affairs of John's estate are settled.

To remind everyone, the original objective of the fund was to, as John's brother says, help the "big geek" foster a lot of "little geeks" who share John's love of information technology. To that end, we have identified an exciting opportunity to continue John's legacy. It involves the elementary school that John attended from the 2nd through 7th grade, Mother Catherine Spalding School in Helen, MD. John started there when we first moved to Maryland in 1983 and went there until we moved to Belgium in 1989 and as such, it had a big impact upon John's formative years. In addition, John is buried in the cemetery directly behind the school, which provides yet another connection.

We have had preliminary discussions with school and archdiocesan officials and have focused at this point in time on potentially equipping the middle school grades of Mother Catherine with enough laptop computers that each student will have one to use in class. The objective would be to have the use of the internet and various software applications directly incorporated into lesson plans across the board. This would allow students and teachers to directly incorporate the use of information technology into all course work rather than being limited to a computer lab that can be accessed only periodically during the week.

We want to make certain that this makes the most sense for the students and faculty before any hard commitments are made at this point in time. Nonetheless, we also want to make certain that all of John's family and friends are aware of the latest developments in this area.

For those interested, contributions can still be made to:

John William Leonard Memorial Scholarship Fund
c/o Bank of America
28250 Three Notch RD
Mechanicsville, MD 20659

UPDATE: A tax-deductible charitable scholarship fund in John's memory has been established at Mother Catherine Spalding School. For those interested, tax-deductible contributions can be made to:

MCSS for J.W. Leonard Technology Scholarship

and can be mailed to:

Mother Catherine Spalding School
Helen, MD 20635

Thanks to all for your continuing generosity and for helping the "Big Geek foster a lot of little geeks."