[Posted on Arcan-L)

Dear Friends, It is with sadness that I share the news of the passsing of David W. Leonard, esteemed historian and archivist, and recipient of the Alberta Order of Excellence. David's contributions to the preservation of Alberta's history are well-summarized here: https://www.alberta.ca/aoe-david-leonard.

On a more personal note, David was a wonderful supervisor during the time I worked at the Provincial Archives of Alberta as a Government Records Archivist, which is where we first met. He became a lifelong friend, and was a kind and generous soul. Ever passionate about history, he was an avid collector of old vinyl records and movies from from the 1940s and 1950s, often recording excerpts of musical numbers from these to share with his friends. We also wrote three books together: one on tracing your ancestors in Alberta and two others on the history of Alberta's Peace River Country, having many adventures driving around in Peace River country searching for old homesteads and other landmarks.

With David's passing, the Alberta, and Canadian, archival community has lost an outstanding community member.

Best wishes,

Victoria Lemieux

Victoria Lemieux, MAS, PhD, CISSP  (she/her/hers) Professor,Archival Science, School of Information Co-Lead, Blockchain@UBC research cluster Faculty Associate, Institute for Computing, Information and Cognitive Systems Affiliated Faculty Member, Faculty of Applied Science, Department of Computer and Electrical Engineering The University of British Columbia