Curtis Leaf

Curt was born in Webster City, Iowa to John and Marjorie (Long) Leaf on November 27, 1956. The family relocated to a farm near Boone, Iowa in 1959. Reared in a Christian home along with siblings Cindy (1958) and Craig (1964), Curt was saved by faith in Christ as a child, baptized and joined the church his family faithfully attended.

During his high school years at Ogden Community High in Ogden, IA, Curt enjoyed learning to cook; playing in the brass section of the school bands; and taking honors science and math classes before his graduation in 1975. The honors classes seemed to be the springboard for many non-math and science escapades and pranks as well as providing the knowledge base for the engineering career in which Curt would later thrive.

Curt was awarded scholarships which mostly paid the bills for his studies at Iowa State University in Ames, Iowa. He worked in his mom's diner to earn money for the rest of his school bills. Curt fulfilled his humanities credits by taking Bible classes at Faith Baptist Bible College in Ankeny, Iowa. During summers between college years, Curt worked as a camp cook at Iowa Regular Baptist Camp in Clear Lake, Iowa, where he met his wife, Judy. Curt graduated from ISU in 1979 with an agricultural engineering degree.

Curt's first career job was with John Deere in Dubuque, Iowa, where he worked from 1979-1982. Curt then went to Onan Corporation in Fridley, MN, where he worked in various capacities such as application engineering, design and management from 1982-2005, including five years working for Onan Corporation's Huntsville, Alabama facility. After 23 years at Onan/Cummins, Curt wanted to grow professionally, so he went to McQuay Corporation, where he defined their quality assurance program.

Curt married Judy (Hircock) in Winterset, Iowa on June 14, 1980. They have four daughters. Beth (1985), Christina (1989), Courtney (1991) and Megan (1995). As the girls grew old enough to enjoy playing on community league sports teams, Curt noticed the need for good coaches for teams, so he began volunteering to assist the coaches of Beth's teams. He coached Christina's and Courtney's and later Megan's softball and basketball teams.
Curt was greatly honored to be nominated by one of his player's families to receive the Awesome Coach Award in 2002, which was presented to him by Al Newman on the field at the Metrodome, a rare honor for a volunteer coach.

Through most of his adult life, Curt enjoyed teaching adult Sunday School classes at the churches he attended. Curt also enjoyed cars and woodworking. Curt was always willing to assist in kids' projects at his churches, such as building Awana Grand Prix cars, and the construction of a playground for the Christian school where the girls attended during the Huntsville years, or volunteering to be a line judge for volleyball games at Woodcrest.

Late in 2014, Curt was diagnosed with cancer. He was optimistic about remission up until early 2016, when he received the news from his team of doctors that despite the best efforts of all involved, the treatments were not successful. Curt went home to be with the Lord on February 4, 2016, at his home, surrounded by his family.