 Judge Leonard was also a former federal judicial nominee to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit and to the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina.Born in North Carolina and a native of Welcome, North Carolina, Leonard earned a bachelor's degree in 1971 from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he was a Morehead Scholar and graduated Phi Beta Kappa.At Carolina, he served as the president of the Carolina Union, and was awarded the John J. Parker Medal and the Frank Porter Graham awards for outstanding leadership, and the Howard Odom Prize as the top undergraduate sociology major.