DOWAGIAC — When Roann Leatz remembers her father, two descriptors come to mind: genuine and civic-minded.

“He was always involved. He was always doing stuff. He wasn’t one of those guys that sat still for very long,” Roann said. “He was always in the middle of some improvement project, whether it was for his home, the city or the county.”

Longtime Dowagiac Train Depot volunteer Ron Leatz, 77, of Dowagiac, died last Saturday in his home. While Leatz was an active member in Dowagiac’s community and civilly engaged, he was best known for Light Up the Depot, a multi-year campaign he led to add lights to the outside of Dowagiac’s historic train depot.

“As [the depot] is a pretty significant historical marker for the city, he wanted to make sure it was done top knotch,” Roann said. “Dad looked at life critically, so he was always looking for ways to improve things. In a way, I think he thought it was his duty to make things better, and it gave him a sense of purpose.”

Ron was born on April 10, 1942. He graduated high school in St. Joseph before studying at Benton Harbor Community College and Technical Institute. During that time, he met his wife, Ann Schmidt, of Dowagiac, who he married on Oct. 28, 1961.

Throughout his life, Ron worked many jobs throughout the country, including as a WSJM radio sports announcer, a speedway fire suppression/safety team member for multiple speedway tracks in Michigan, Indiana, Ohio and California, and Deputy Fire Chief, fire inspector and quality assurance technician for Northrop Grumman Corp in California.

After living in numerous locations across the U.S., Ron and Ann returned to Dowagiac in 2005, where Ron took an active role in community advocacy and later began his campaign to improve the Dowagiac train depot as both a city resident and volunteer with the Michigan Association of Railroad Passengers.

“He always used to say, ‘There isn’t any way to get out of town. We don’t have a taxi service, so the train was the best form of transportation we had,’” Ann recalled her husband saying. “He wanted to do everything he could for it.”

In 2010, Leatz launched his first Light Up the Depot campaign, where he raised $8,000 to place the first batch of lights upon the depot. However, due to wiring issues, the lights came down, and Leatz once again got to work fundraising, this time raising more than $7,000. In 2017, the lights went back up.

“The compliments the building gets from people who see it all lit up at night are unbelievable,” Ron told the Dowagiac Daily News in 2016 about why he was dedicated to having the lights put back up at the depot.

Ron’s volunteer work at the depot did not end with the lights. In 2017, Ron helped organize a field trip for local students to take the Amtrak to Chicago to learn about the original Orphan Train, as part of the city’s Orphan Train celebration.

Though many might not think automatically of Amtrak as a place to volunteer their time, it is important to care about its service as it provides the only form of inter-city transportation in Dowagiac, according to John Langdon, governmental/public affairs coordinator at Michigan Association of Railroad Passengers.

Langdon, who worked with Ron for several events and projects, said Ron worked to ensure Dowagiac riders received the highest possible quality of service from Amtrak.

“[Ron] was very interested in getting things done right,” Langdon said. “He was very civic-minded — all around very involved. He is missed. Already he is missed by us rail-nerds.”

Though Ron may have seemed to have a rough exterior to some, his family said that he always had Dowagiac’s best interests at heart and that until death he remained civic-minded.

“He was so proud, as a volunteer, to help people get on the train going the right direction,” Roann said. “He wanted to improve things and make everything better, and he always did it with the best of intentions. … He never had a malicious bone in his body. He always had the best intentions with every place he lived to make it the best it could be.”