Remembering Columbus State Vice President Michael Leymaster

Update | Tuesday, April 27, 2021

Last week, we received the sad news that Michael Leymaster, who served as vice president of Student Services at Columbus State for nearly two decades, passed away at the age of 80. Leymaster began at the College when it was Columbus Technical Institute (CTI). Upon his retirement, the Board of Trustees granted him Emeritus status in 1996.

Leymaster hired Mike Snider in 1973 to start the respiratory therapy program at CTI. Snider eventually became the college provost. At the time, Leymaster was a dean. Snider says, “After Leymaster was named vice president for Student Services, he greatly enhanced services to students and developed a nationally recognized disability services department.” 

Snider recalls that Leymaster served as an instrumental part of the team that helped CTI become Columbus State Community College. “Leymaster is yet another person that current employees of Columbus State stand on the shoulders of,” he says. “We have benefited from Michael’s knowledge and leadership skills.”

Pam Bishop, interim executive director of the Columbus State Foundation, has fond memories working with Leymaster. She says, “He was one of the first people who called me in 2013 to offer his support and helped us with several retiree events.” 

Leymaster was also a longstanding donor at the President's Circle level. Taste the Future 2019 was the last time Bishop saw him. “Late in the evening, as the party was breaking up, I took Mike and his daughter on a tour of Mitchell Hall,” she says. “We were the last people leaving the building that historic day, and he was choked with emotion to see how Columbus State had grown and prospered.  He will be missed by so many people.”

You may read Michael Leymaster’s obituary at this link.   

(Pictured below, from the mid-1970s, left to right: Michael Leymaster, President Harold Nestor, and Harold Brown, vice president of Academic Affairs, as they examined a model of Franklin Hall before its construction.)

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