Nick Clooney, Suzette Martinez Standring, Mike Leonard
No one does it better than Mike Leonard, the longest-serving member of the NSNC. For selfless leadership over the past 33 years, he receives the 2018 NSNC Legacy Award.
And he started just like you.
In 1985, Mike wrote his first general-interest column with the daily Herald-Times in Bloomington, Indiana. It also happened to be the year Mike attended his first NSNC conference in Columbus, Ohio. “I found myself among a lot of like-minded people. When you work at a newspaper, some reporters look at you differently — like you don’t work as hard as they do or you get special treatment. NSNC members knew that feeling and while they took the craft of column writing very seriously, they didn’t regard themselves that way. There was a camaraderie in the group that we’ve always been able to keep.”
Mike should know. The June 7-10 weekend in Cincinnati marked his 31 stconference attended.
“From my early days in the group, when the Louisville duo of “Big Bob” Hill and Dick Des Ruisseaux ran the group, we’ve embraced a conference agenda of ongoing education, revitalization, and just having fun, whether we are touring the host city or sharing stories in the hospitality suite,” Mike said.
In 1999, Mike was approached “out of the blue” and was asked to run for NSNC vice president, which led to his presidency in 2002-2004.
Financial stability was his first order of business. “Chasing money was certainly new to me, but it was obviously needed,” he said. Sizable sponsorships followed, notably in New Orleans (2004) and this spring in Cincinnati, ensuring the NSNC offers quality programming and activities at an affordable price to attendees.
Over the years, Mike has served on the NSNC board and committees, with planning involvement in many conferences, such as New Orleans (2004), Bloomington (2010), Indianapolis (2015), and this year in Cincinnati.
After a 35-year career with The Herald-Times, Mike worked for Bloomington’s Bloom Magazine where he continued to write a column from 2013 to 2015. And his adjunct faculty gig at Indiana University took a turn for the better. “Instead of teaching basic newswriting or magazine editing, I was asked to create a class on writing columns and op-eds. Now I get to teach Ernie Pyle,” he said. In May, he and a partner launched a new commentary website www.indiana.com .
In recent years Mike shaped a new reiteration of the NSNC’s annual college columnist writing contest founded in 1999 by Dave Lieber and members of the NSNC Education Foundation. In 2016, Mike headed efforts to partner with Jeanne Phillips, aka Dear Abby, and her philanthropic Phillips Family Foundation to create and fund the Dear Abby College Columnist Scholarship Program. In 2017, it awarded its first recipient, Archer Parquette of Boston College, at the NSNC conference in Manchester, New Hampshire. That first year, contest entries grew from around 10 to more than 60. Continued growth is expected.
Mike said, “Dave Lieber in particular gets a lot of credit for moving the scholarship along for years. But we self-funded, basically through annual auctions at our conferences, and as newspapers stopped paying for conference attendance, and stopped providing us all with fun newspaper swag, it got harder and harder to raise money via the auction. Dear Abby saw the value of encouraging the columnists of the future and stepped forward with not only money but the assistance of the syndicate that carries her work, Andrews McMeel Universal.”
The NSNC is Mike’s home, as he feels no other journalism organization or writers’ association focuses on the craft of column writing. A columnist may be aspiring or seasoned, online or in print, in small or large publications. The writer may be salaried, syndicated or independent, but commonality in column writing is our enduring bond.
Mike Leonard, this year’s NSNC Legacy Award winner, retains an “aw, shucks” modesty in the face of his mighty efforts in building a foundation and guiding the NSNC and the NSNC Education Foundation toward an assured future.
“I feel good about being a steadying presence, doing my part, knowing what hasn’t worked and what will work, and helping to steer the boat,” he said.
Michael, row that boat ashore to a well-deserved award.
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Suzette Standring writes and teaches writing, and has broadened her career to include NSNC Executive Director.
