The East St. Louis NAACP awarded Brian Leonard, manager, Business & Community Affairs, AmerenUE, with a Freedom Fund award at its 54th annual honors banquet on Oct. 19.
“There was a wide range of honorees from business, sports and music,” Leonard says. “The theme was different this year. It was the culmination of the awardees coming home. If you put all of us together, it shows what we can achieve together.”
Leonard was born in East St. Louis and was a star running back for East St. Louis Senior High.
He says many of the leadership skills he learned from Flyers’ head coach Cornelius Perry and his father, William Leonard, Sr., are the foundation of what has led to a successful career at AmerenUE.
“Attending East St. Louis Senior High in the mid-70s was a troubled time. It was right after the burn-baby-burn era of the 60s,” Leonard says. “Coach Perry taught us teamwork, dedication, discipline and the will to succeed. In three years, he had us come together as a team regardless of what was going on around us. Coach Perry always said, ‘the will to succeed should follow you far beyond high school.’ ”
Today, Leonard tries to transfer that will-to-succeed attitude at UE and his alma mater, East St. Louis High School, where he participates in a mentoring program for students.
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