Retiree spotlight: Leon Smith -- changing the song

On National Lineman Appreciation Day - April 18 - LG&E and KU recognize and honor Leon Smith, a pioneer in the company's history.  

Leon Smith stood on the outdoor stage in front of hundreds of festival-goers on a sun-drenched day in late summer in Danville, Kentucky. All his life, he had been blessed with a golden voice. Many compared him to the legendary Sam Cooke, the “King of Soul.” As his gospel chorus from church backed him up, Leon’s song filled the town square, and it began to move the crowd. 

I’ll go, if I have to go by myself. 
I’ll sing, if I have to sing by myself. 
I’ll pray, if I have to pray by myself…

Leon’s daughter, Penny, then in her 20s, heard her dad’s powerful song. She made her way through the standing audience to watch him. When Leon caught sight of her, he smiled as he sang. 

If my mother don’t go. My father don’t go. My sister don’t go, or my brother don’t go. 
I’ll go, if I have to go by myself…

Leon grew up not far from this very spot, in neighboring Garrard County, just across the Dix River in a little area known as Davistown. It was the 1950s. The small farmhouse had four rooms. It had no electricity and no running water. There was an outhouse in the back. His mother, stepfather, five brothers and older sister all lived with him.

“Life was hard,” said Leon.

To help raise money to have clothes for school, he worked along with his stepfather, who was a farmer. Leon would haul hay, cut tobacco and more. Money was tight. Leon’s mother was a cook at the Bluegrass Restaurant on Main Street in Danville. She could work there and cook there, but she was not allowed to eat there. Anyone who looked like her had to order from a back window and leave. No Black people were allowed to sit inside.

Leon went to an all-Black school. Every day he would ride a bus past Lancaster High School, which was all-White, with its large classrooms, big gymnasium and green, lush fields for baseball. His school had none of those things. There were 10 students in his graduating class of 1961.

Schools, like most everything at the time, were segregated. One thing, though, wasn’t segregated: baseball. Jackie Robinson had broken the color barrier, winning batting titles and Most Valuable Player honors along the way. Leon listened on the radio to St. Louis Cardinals games with Bob Gibson, a Black man, who was winning Cy Young Awards and being named to All-Star teams.

“My dream was to be a professional baseball player,” said Leon. He played third base, and he was good. “There were White kids who played baseball with us, too. We all became friends.”

His teachers wanted him to go to college. His family didn’t have the money to send him, and there was no such thing as financial aid. Most universities were all-White, anyway. He wouldn’t be allowed.

After high school, Leon found work as a mechanic at a garage in downtown Danville. He fell in love with a woman named Diane. They married and had a son, Leon Jr., and a daughter, Lisa. He made about $25 a week. He was 28 years old.

Then everything changed. Like the song by Sam Cooke, who gave hope to millions, a change was going to come. A miracle was about to happen.

There been times that I thought I couldn't last for long,
But now, I think I'm able to carry on.
It’s been a long, a long time coming.
But I know a change gon’ come. Oh, yes, it will.

A man walked into the garage and asked to speak to Leon. His name was Ed Burnett, and he worked for Kentucky Utilities.

“The reason why I’m coming to talk with you,” said Burnett, “is because the federal government has approached us about not having any Black linemen.” He had talked with Leon’s school teachers and had asked around about him in the community. He knew Leon had a tremendous character and work ethic. He felt Leon could do the job.

It was 1969. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 had outlawed discrimination based on race, color, sex or national origin. The backlash came in the form of deadly violence. One incident that caught national attention was known as “Bloody Sunday” in Selma, Alabama, in 1965. State troopers and a mob of angry citizens, using clubs and tear gas, attacked unarmed civil rights marchers. Later that night, a crowd beat one activist to death. Riots and violence made headlines across the nation.

Into this highly charged atmosphere came Leon Smith. His youngest daughter, Penny, said it simply, “I call him the Jackie Robinson of the utility industry.” Leon was about to live the words of his song.   

I’ll go, if I go by myself. 
Sometimes I get worried. Send me, I’ll go. 
Sometimes I get burdened. Send me, I’ll go.

A life-changing chapter at KU

Leon started his first day on the job at Kentucky Utilities in December of 1970. All the other linemen were White. The money was good. “It was better than any I had ever made,” he said. His co-workers were even better. “They treated me like a brother.”

Everyone at KU treated Leon with respect and friendship. “My first foreman, James Hammond, had been there for years. He didn’t treat me any differently in any way than he did the others.” Leon had made one thing clear: “I didn’t tell any ethnic jokes, and I wouldn’t listen to any, either.”

Leon’s oldest daughter, Lisa, also came to work for KU, first as a meter reader. “He literally opened the door for me. My father had a brotherhood (within the community and the KU family), and there was an understanding and an openness. I always felt proud when I was at KU because everyone knew my father, and I was able to do things because of him.”

His youngest daughter, Penny, got a summer job at KU just after high school doing inventory, counting poles, transformers, etc. When she watched her dad perform his job, her eyes opened and she was changed forever. “Before I had been lazy. I made excuses. My parents were paying for me to go to college.”

She saw his daily routine, putting on his gear before heading out. “It was the hard hat, the rubber sleeves on top of a long-sleeve flannel shirt, and rubber gloves to protect him from live wires. All this in 95-degree heat. I saw him in the bucket truck.” Then Penny watched in awe as her dad climbed a tall thin wooden pole. “You’re talking about climbing up there using small spikes and your boots. I saw that he was taking a chance with his life every day and doing it with ease. It inspired me never to be mediocre again.”  

Penny eventually earned a full scholarship to post-graduate school. Now, she has a PhD from Vanderbilt. “My dad,” she said, “is my hero.”

In her youth, as she walked through the crowd toward the stage at Danville’s Constitution Festival, watching her father sing and smile, Penny didn’t know what was to come.

She didn’t know he would find a small knot on his jaw in 2016. It was cancer of the salivary glands. Leon had two surgeries to remove the cancer. He had radiation treatments and lost all his teeth and about 40 pounds. Now, he wears false teeth and, more importantly, no longer can sing.

On that long-ago day, however, on a stage before hundreds of people, Leon Smith started changing the words to the song, impromptu. He changed the words for his daughter, who emerged from the crowd and stood smiling, but fighting back tears of joy and love.

You’ll go, Penny, but you’ll never go by yourself. 
You’ll sing, Penny, but you’ll never sing by yourself. 
You’ll pray, Penny, but you’ll never pray by yourself.

“I was looking at a blessing,” said Leon. “All three of my children, my wife, my four grandchildren. They’re all blessings. I was just saying that you’re never all alone, even when I’m gone.”

Leon had changed the words to the song, just like he had helped change KU history. In 1995, he received a hand-written letter – a treasured memento -- from Ed Burnett, the man who first hired him.

“We both realize the courage it required on your part to breach the barrier that existed within the company at that time,” Burnett wrote. “You met and mastered that challenge with dignity in a most exemplary manner.”

Today, Leon is facing a new challenge: prostate cancer. The doctors tell him he should avoid surgery at his age. At 80, he smiles and looks at his wife, Diane. “No matter how much we love someone, how much someone loves us, how famous we are or how rich, we all have to make that journey.”

Leon Smith’s journey has seen a world where his children and grandchildren don’t worry about what school they’re allowed to attend, or what restaurant will or won’t let them eat inside. Through it all, he says he’s been extremely blessed. “When I see all three of my children sitting around the table, and my wife of 60 years here by me, and I’m 80 years old, what more could I want?”

His throat might not let him sing any more, but his voice carries on. The notes will continue to fall, far from him, far from Kentucky Utilities, and join a chorus of others, all part of an instrument of change, one that will echo forever.