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Leonard |
Jerry Wade Leonard, a developer who helped shape the Fredericksburg area, died Feb. 8 at Mary Washington Hospital.
He was 76.
Leonard and his brother, the late Franklin Leonard, owned and operated Leonard Brothers Construction, which built Nichols Shopping Center, now Four-Mile Fork Shopping Center, in Spotsylvania County; and the Woolco Center, now the Brafferton Shopping Center, in Garrisonville.
Other projects included building houses, warehouses, college dormitories and elementary schools, as well as the area's first YMCA and UPS building.
Leonard also owned the area's first communications tower, now the Motorola Tower, in the 1970s; co-founded Fredericksburg's first professional dinner theater at the General Washington Inn, which he also owned; and owned WHFV-TV, Fredericksburg's first television station, which had a semi-monthly public affairs program devoted to local issues and showed reruns of "The Andy Griffith Show."
Leonard also helped found the First American Savings and Loan Association and co-founded Virginia Heartland Bank, where he served as chairman of the board.
He was a member of the Virginia Republican Party and served as a Virginia delegate in several state and national conventions.
A star athlete in four sports, Leonard graduated from James Monroe High School in 1950. He also studied the building trade at Chicago Technical College, and started a masonry construction business at age 17. He enlisted during the Korean War in 1953, and served in the Army Corps of Engineers, 5th Armored Cavalry Group. He was honorably discharged in 1961.
Leonard is survived by two daughters, Victoria Gaye Russell and Dawn Colette Leonard Roper, both of Spotsylvania County; one sister, Barbara Leonard Layton of Fredericksburg; one brother, the Rev. Charles W. Leonard of Fredericksburg; and four grandchildren.
The family will host a celebration of life at 3:30 p.m. Monday at Covenant Funeral Home, 4801 Jefferson Davis Highway, and then receive friends at a reception at Riverside Center in south Stafford County.
The family requests that expressions of sympathy take the form of donations to Big Brothers Big Sisters, 325-A Wallace Ave., Fredericksburg, Va. 22401.
Cathy Jett: 540/374-5407
Email: cjett@freelancestar.com
