Stanford Leonidas Conner

Stanford Leonidas (Lon) Conner was born in Montgomery, Alabama on August 30, 1929 to Thomas Delma Conner and Mary Gladys Chesnutt Conner. He was named after the family of Mary Stanford Chesnutt, his maternal grandmother, and after Dr. Luther Leonidas Hill, a prominent physician with close ties to the Conner family. Lon and his brother, Tom, were lifelong best friends and dearest of brothers. They were devoted older brothers to their much beloved sister, Sue. They all enjoyed a childhood rich in the love of their parents and grandparents and their many friends in the Capital Heights neighborhood. Exposed to music, art, and classic literature, passions of their mother, and to hunting and fishing, pleasures of their father, from an early age, the three siblings were also well versed in Christian theology and were, throughout their lives, devoted to the Christian faith.

Lon graduated from Lanier High School in 1947 and from Alabama Polytechnic Institute (Auburn University) in 1951, earning a Bachelor of Science Degree. Immediately afterwards, Lon served in the U.S. Army at Fort Benning until he was honorably discharged in 1952. The same year, Lon and Tom purchased a family dry cleaning business owned by their uncle, Wendell Conner. Because of his love for mathematics, Lon began taking courses in mathematics at Huntingdon College in 1952. He was inducted into the Mathematics Honorary and tutored students in math for years. While attending Huntingdon, he met fellow student Carolyn Virginia Hollis of Fayette, Alabama whom he married on June 26, 1953.

Tom and Lon expanded the business and finally sold the cleaners when in 1973 Lon received a Master’s Degree in Public Administration from Auburn University in Montgomery and joined the Alabama Development Office. In 1976, Lon accepted the position of Executive Director of the Medical Association of the State of Alabama, a branch of the American Medical Association (AMA). There he continued his lifelong focus of helping people who had fallen on hard times. While at the dry cleaners, he had routinely hired and mentored former convicts and for years cared for battered female employees. Soon after joining the Medical Association, he pioneered the Impaired Physicians Program which facilitated counseling for physicians who had succumbed to addictions. Lon received an AMA award in appreciation and recognition for his contributions to that effort. Lon was a member of the American Medical Association, the American Association of Medical Society Executives, the Jackson Hospital Board, and served as Chairman of the Coalition for a Tobacco Free Alabama. In 1997 he was the recipient of the William Crawford Gorgas award for outstanding service to Health Work in Alabama and in 1998 was awarded the American Medical Executive Achievement Award. After twenty-one years of service, Lon retired to pursue his varied interests and enjoy time with his family.

Carolyn, Lon’s lifelong love, died June 15, 2023. Lon is survived by three daughters with whom he shared his faith in word and by example and all of whom he loved unconditionally: Susan O’Connor (Mark, deceased), Virginia Hornsby (John), and Laura Conner Tribble; by his treasured grandchildren, Jennifer O’Connor (Michael), Lindsey O’Connor (Trace), Caroline Haisten (Austin), Stanford Hornsby, Elizabeth Whitacre (Paul), Mary Shelton Hornsby, and Catherine Tribble; by his much celebrated great-grandchildren, Maddox Crumpton, Mary Ruth Haisten, Laura Hollis Crumpton, Anneliese Crumpton, Thomas Haisten, Edith Welch, and Mattie Haisten; his cherished nephews Robin Jones and Ashley Jones, and his dear niece, Marguerite Miller.

Memorials may be sent to Grace Pointe Church, 1565 Ray Thorington Road, Montgomery, AL 36117.