Carolina Alumni Review - January/February 2012

overnight hiking opportunity within 30 minutes of downtown Charlotte.)

“We’re talking about iconic places for our state and people,” says Tony Reevy, senior associate director of UNC’s Institute for the Environment; Leonard serves on the institute’s board of visitors.

The North Carolina Award “was well-deserved,” Reevy
says. “He’s been very modest. If you try to research anything
about Mike regarding Chimney Rock or Grandfather
Mountain, I doubt you’re going to find anything.”
Leonard’s low profile is illustrative of his interest in service
above public recognition. Leonard serves on nine historic
and conservation boards. He founded the Alabama Trails
Association and Georgia Pinhoti Trail Association and serves
as vice chair of the board on the national Conservation Fund.

“If there’s anything, what I really use is this overall skill of getting from point A to point Z,” Leonard says.

Willis Brooks, Leonard’s professor of Russian history at UNC, would agree.

“He takes data and makes sense of it,” Brooks says. “I still
see him as a person who loves challenges, who’s risk-
inclined. You rarely as a faculty see that feature in an under-
graduate.”
In his quiet hometown of Bethania, just outside of
Winston-Salem, Leonard lives with his wife, Michelle, and
his youngest daughter, Iris, in what is locally known as the
Cornwallis House. This 1770s home features modern art
juxtaposed with artifacts from the Revolutionary War. It’s
one of 14 homes Leonard preserved in Bethania, along with
165 acres of land.

HUGH MORTON ’ 43

While his conservation instincts started at home, the results have been far-reaching.

“I’ve been down there to Alabama, and people have come up to me,” Leonard says. “They say, ‘My son and I went out there and worked on the Pinhoti Trail together during these tough teenage years, and it meant so much to me.’ And I just think, ‘Dadgum.’ Here’s these people building these communities around these natural areas. They bring so much meaning to my life.”

Leonard says his favorite conservation project was negotiating the deal that made a state park out of Grandfather Mountain, shown in this photo by its late owner, Hugh Morton ’ 43.

— Hannah Taylor ’ 11

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