Tyler woodturner John David Leonard leaves lasting craft legacy

John David Leonard spent his retirement doing what the best club turners do: he stood at the lathe, showed his work, and gave away the small shop lessons that keep a craft alive. After moving to Tyler, Texas, he became an avid woodturner and taught through demonstrations to his woodturning club, building a reputation that reached beyond East Texas. His pieces went into collections around the country, and his biscuit cutters became the kind of practical turning southern bakers do not forget.

That teaching instinct did not start in the woodshop. Leonard, who died March 13, 2026, at age 87, had already spent a lifetime in classrooms, training rooms, and community work. He and Kay were high school sweethearts in Borger, Texas, and were married for 64 years. After the wedding, Leonard began Navy service in Tennessee, later graduated from Texas A&M while stationed in Kingsville, Texas, and trained Navy pilots as an Instructor Trainer in the flight simulation program. He then worked more than 30 years as a civilian human resources specialist for the Navy. The obituary also described him as a Dale Carnegie instructor and a natural teacher, the kind of person who did not just know how to do something but knew how to explain it.

That matters in woodturning, where a good demo can change the way a roomful of people approach the lathe. East Texas Woodturners, the Tyler-area club Leonard taught with, says it serves turners by providing a meeting place, sharing woodturning ideas and techniques, exchanging wood and tools, offering a mentor program, and keeping recordings of demonstrations. That is the sort of network Leonard plugged into after retirement: not a solitary hobby, but a living teaching loop where one turner’s method becomes the next turner’s habit. The American Association of Woodturners says its chapter network includes more than 365 chapters worldwide, and its demonstrator guidance notes that most clubs allow up to 90 minutes for a single demonstration, with tools, woods, design, finishing, and technique all part of the lesson.

Leonard’s legacy fits that model exactly. He was not remembered only for what he made, but for how he made it visible to others, one club demo at a time. In a craft built on repetition, sharp tools, and careful timing, that is how a turner stays present long after the last piece comes off the lathe.