Louis Public Radio in December 2013 when it merged with the St. Louis Beacon. She had been a reporter for the Beacon since April 2008 -- after a 17-year career at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, where she was a reporter and an editor in the features section. Her stories have won Regional Edward R. Murrow Awards — for feature reporting in 2018 and hard news in 2016. She has also won awards from the Missouri Associated Press Managing Editors, the Missouri Press Association and the Illinois Press Association. In 2010, the Bar Association of Metropolitan St. Louis honored her with a Spirit of Justice Award in recognition of her work on the housing crisis. Leonard began her newspaper career at the Belleville News-Democrat (in Illinois). She earned a degree in mass communications from Southern Illinois University-Edwardsville, where she has served as an adjunct faculty member. She is partial to huskies, pomeranians and Cardinals.