Leland Edmonds, 1923-1975

Leland Edmonds, 51, professor of regional and community planning in the Kansas State University College of Architecture and Design and a one-time state director of planning for Kansas, died January 23, 1975, at Stormont-Vail Hospital in Topeka.  He had been ill for several years, suffering with blood disease, but had been hospitalized only recently. 

A member of the KSU faculty since 1969, Edmonds had continued to maintain a home in Topeka.  He is survived by his wife, Beth Marie, of the home; and by four children:  John, a K-State student; Carol Beth, a Washburn University student; and Ann Marie and David Lee, both of the home.  Also surviving are his mother, Mrs. Jessie Edmonds, and six brothers and sisters.

Born at Oskaloosa on September 19, 1923, Edmonds was a 1941 graduate of Oskaloosa High School.  After service during World War II, he was an elementary school principal at Lost Springs for two years before completing BA and MA degrees at the University of Kansas in 1950-1952.  He first became active in planning in 1956 at Albuquerque, NM, and later served as a senior planner with the US Department of Housing and Urban Development in Fort Worth, as city planner for Wichita, as chief planner for Oblinger and Smith, planning consultants, in Wichita; and briefly, in 1968, was a director of State Plans Coordination for Kansas.

Edmonds was active in the development of the Pottawatomie-Riley County Regional Planning Commission and served as first chairman of the body, and from 1969 to 1974 was a member of the Kansas Capitol Area Planning Commission.  At K-State his primary responsibility had been as project director of the Public Investment Project of the Ozarks Region-Kansas Ozarks for the Kansas Department of Economic Development.

He was a member of the American Institute of Planners and had served as vice president of the Arkansas Valley Chapter, and also was a member of the American Society of Planning officials.  He was author of numerous professional publications.