My mother died last Wednesday at home, peacefully and comfortably. Here is her obituary, which appeared in the Asheville Citizen-Times on October 20, 2018. My family will hold a service and a children’s book drive in her memory in the spring.
Karen Wiegand Leonard, 78, died at her home in Asheville on October 17, 2018. She was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, on August 31, 1940, the daughter of Anita Steinruck Wiegand and Louis Wiegand.
Karen was a graduate of the elite Katherine Gibbs School for executive assistants in New York City in 1959. After moving with her immediate family to Asheville in 1981, she worked for George H. V. Cecil and his son Jack F. A. V. Cecil at Biltmore Farms, Inc. for 24 years until her retirement in 2005. But she will be remembered best in Asheville for her activism and commitment to gifted education, serving as the President of the Asheville chapter of the Parents Association for Gifted Education, and as the founder and director of the Super Saturday program at UNC-Asheville. The innovative Super Saturday program, which still continues, enables advanced middle and junior high school students from the area to take courses in topics not available at their schools, with classes ranging from Classical Mythology to German, Robotics, and Filmmaking.
Karen was herself a lifelong learner, taking courses in education, literature, and other areas at UNC-Asheville and at Mars Hill University. She attended lectures at Oxford University in England through the Oxford Experience program, took courses at the John Campbell Folk School, and took private art lessons with Asheville artists. She was, as she put it, “an omnivorous and indiscriminate reader,” although she frequently returned to her favorites, J. R. R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings and Cynthia Voight’s Tillerman series. Following her retirement, she was a volunteer with the Asheville-Buncombe Library System, reading to children and teaching children to read.
Karen is survived by her husband Winston Leonard, their daughter Kendra Preston Leonard (Karl Rufener), and her two step-sons, Keith Leonard (Robin Rice) and Mitch Leonard (Ann Leonard); three granddaughters, Sarah Hannah Lundgren (Lance Lundgren); Lindsay Hayes, and Ashley Hayes; her brother, Ken Wiegand, and his family. A memorial service will be planned for the spring of 2019.
