Leonard Kayser was born on February 9, 1933 on the family farm near Emery, SD. The 8th of 10 children, he is the son of Felix and Sophia (nee Krier) Kayser. He attended St. Martin School in Emery and the Alexandria Public School for two years of high school before enrolling at Crosier Seminary in Onamia, MN. Leonard continued his priestly formation at St. Paul Seminary in Saint Paul, MN prior to being ordained to the priesthood by the Most Reverend Lambert A. Hoch on May 24, 1959 at the Cathedral of St. Joseph in Sioux Falls. Upon ordination Father Kayser served as an associate pastor at the parishes of St. Mary in Sioux Falls, Sacred Heart in Yankton, and Sacred Heart in Parkston. During his years of active ministry, he was appointed to the pastorates of St. Michael, in Herried, St. Pius X in Onida, St. Thomas Aquinas in De Smet, and St. Williams in Aurora before appointment to serve as the Interim Executive Director of the National Catholic Rural Life Conference in Des Moines, IA. He returned to the Diocese to serve in the pastorates of St. Francis de Sales in Estelline, St. John in Castlewood, St. Thomas More in Brookings, St. Theresa in Sioux Falls, St. George in Hartford, St. Agnes in Sigel and St. Columba in Mayfield. For a time he also served in a full-time capacity as the Rural Life Director for the Diocese of Sioux Falls as well as in chaplaincy assignments at McKennan Hospital in Sioux Falls and the South Dakota Human Services Center in Yankton. In retirement, Father Kayser provided weekend substitute ministry across the diocese while assisting regularly at Avera Sacred Heart Hospital and its affiliated nursing homes in the Yankton area. He was grateful to call Yankton his adopted home and for the support he received from the brother priests, the Benedictine Sisters and others who shared it with him. An advocate for the agrarian life and a promoter of the lessons that working the land offer us. Father Kayser freely and actively shared how his upbringing on the farm formed in him the disciplines of a simplified life and a recognition of God's instrumental presence in the bounty we receive. Through his tenacity as well as the context of faith through which he taught of the importance of this noble trade, Father Kayser was well-known in the farming community as a champion for the rural life. He is survived by his brother, Bernard (Carole) Kayser, Alexandria, SD; sisters, Sr. Verna Kayser, OSF, Milwaukee, WI, Geraldine Thill, York, NE, Rose Mary (Linus) Boehmer, Pierre, SD, and Frances Fabian, Rosemount, MN as well as by many nieces and nephews; great nieces and great nephews. Father Kayser was preceded in death by his parents; two brothers; and two sisters.