Plachta remembered by friends and family

By Meredith Mayberry
Edited by Kelly Morse and Sarah Schuch

There was a quiet hum in the Sacred Heart Parish this morning. People shuffled in from the cold, gathering near the doorway in their winter coats and dress shoes. Acquaintances hugged each other and smiled. A few people cried.

The funeral mass for Leonard E. Plachta, Central Michigan University’s 11th president, was held at 11 a.m. in the Parish, 302 South Kinney Blvd.

More than 300 of Plachta’s friends and family attended the funeral, filling the center pews. Louise Plachta, Leonard Plachta’s wife, greeted visitors with embraces and soft smiles as the Parish filled to honor Plachta.

He was 78.

Father Thomas J. McNamara presided over the service. He spoke of Plachta as an educator with great influence over the people he helped through the years.

“His legacy lives on through the progress made by the university, through the advice he gave to students and through his faith and his family,” the Father said.

Plachta, born on April 23, 1929 in Detroit, was a professor at CMU from 1972 to 1977. In 1977, he assumed the position of assistant dean of the College of Business Administration. In 1979 he became acting dean.

He was university president from 1992 to 2000.

“An educator really feeds the hungry day by day. Students thirst for knowledge,” Father McNamara said. “When we honor Leonard, we really honor all of the educators at Central Michigan University.”

Father McNamara called upon Plachta’s sister-in-law, Catherine Russell, to speak about Leonard.

Russell recalled meeting Plachta on Thanksgiving of 1956.

She said she was 17-years-old and remembered watching from the living room window as her sister, Louise, walked toward her house holding the hand of a handsome man.

“I opened the door and went to meet the man that my sister chose to be her life-long boyfriend,” Russell said and paused to let a few tears fall on the paper she read from.

“Leonard was a man that I considered to be one of the best,” she said.

Russell remembered Plachta having the longest legs she had ever seen. She had to run to keep up with his walking pace.

She said she could not recall seeing Plachta without a tie.

“I remember Leonard painting a fence in his dress trousers, his white shirt and his polished shoes,” she said. “And there was not one spot of paint on him.”

Father McNamara said when Plachta became interim president in 1992, a special service was held at the church to honor him.

“On that day, 16 years ago, the people in this church stood and applauded to wish him well,” the Father said. “Now, let us stand and applaud his life and the difference he made in the community.”

With that, Plachta’s friends and family rose and gave CMU’s 11th president a standing ovation.

A private family burial followed the service.