The following is abstracted from To the Memory of Arthur Gray Leonard: 1865-1932, remarks of F.D. Holland, Jr., on the dedication of Leonard Hall, October 7-8, 1965, University of North Dakota, Grand Forks.

It is fitting that this hall is dedicated in this particular year; for this is the centennial of the birth of Arthur Gray Leonard. He was born March 15, 1865, in Clinton, New York. He graduated from Salt Lake Academy in Utah and from Oberlin College with the class of 1889.

Following graduation, Arthur Leonard became a geologist with the Iowa Geological Survey, beginning an association which lasted, with interruptions, until he came to North Dakota in 1903. In 1910 he married Katherine Gue of Des Moines Iowa.

Arthur Leonard received the Master's degree from Oberlin in 1895 and the Doctor of Philosophy from Johns Hopkins in 1898. He was assistant professor of geology at the University of Missouri during the academic year 1899-1900 and then returned to Iowa as assistant state geologist, which position he held until he became State Geologist of North Dakota and Assistant Professor of Geology in the fall of 1903.

A member of Phi Beta Kappa, Sigma Xi, and Fellow of the Geological Society of America, he soon gained a wide reputation in the University community, the state and the nation as a research worker, scholar, and teacher. He has been called "the real father of geological education in North Dakota." And so he was. For while some geology courses were listed in the first catalog of the University, he greatly expanded the offerings and brought real professionalism into the curriculum. His bibliography includes more than fifty articles in national scholarly journals as well as in United States and North Dakota Survey publications, the University of North Dakota Quarterly Journal and the North Dakota Engineer.

Dr. Terence T. Quirke, who received, in 1913, the first Master's degree from this Department, wrote, in part:

(Leonard) was of rather slight build, and of considerably more than average height. He was master of considerable physical vitality, as anyone of his former field assistants can testify... His face was distinguished and extremely handsome... He has an admirable personal reserve which was true dignity. In the classroom, his reserve deterred the timid from knowing him well and his dignity awed the boisterous, but no one who approached him could have received a more kindly or courteous reception from anyone than they received from him. He was so fond of a joke that even in his routine teaching he could not resist occasionally the gentle "dig," and sly allusion,... He used his wit to serve and not to sting... One of his greatest luxuries in camp was the campfire at night... On such occasions a well-told story, a neat allusion, or any humorous suggestion always found him an appreciative listener. We was a first-rate raconteur himself, but I think he excelled as an audience because he had the knack of stimulating his performers to do their best. I love to remember the times he would slap his knee and send his hearty "Ho! Ho! Ho!" echoing down the badlands canyons. His really hearty laugh was modulated to indoor dimensions and restrained to his usual dignity when back in civilization and most people knew from him only a rather quiet chuckle;..."

Dr. George Abbott said, "Dr. Leonard was a typical eastern gentleman, but adapted quickly to western ways, was an excellent horseman, and cut a striking figure on a horse."

Such was the man: teacher, scholar, outdoorsman, geologist--trained as an igneous petrologist but such a geologist that he wrote with equal facility on economic geology, stratigraphy, petroleum geology geomorphology, glacial geology and clay and lignite research.

As Dr. Quirke has said: "He stood amongst the foremost scholars and counsellors who have built their lives into the University of North Dakota, which he served for nearly thirty years."

May we as students and teachers working together rise to a level of excellence that will again carry the name of Leonard beyond regional bounds.