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Leonard Wong is a name fondly remembered by many students in St. John's Institution. If you have been fortunate enough to have spent any amount of time with him, you would certainly understand this. Mr. Leonard Wong passed away last weekend. I first found out from my brother and confirmation came from several of my old school mates.

As a man so entrenched in the school's psyche I am sure that many people have many different ways of remembering him. For me it was his passionate affair with the English language and his even more passionate desire to share his love for the language.

Mr. Leonard Wong has a reputation for being one of the best English teachers in the school. While he was never assigned as a teacher in any of my classes I still managed to study English under him. How is this so? He used to give out free English lessons to anyone interested. Till this day I am thankful for having studied English under him.

There were many useful lessons I learnt from Mr. Leonard Wong. One that sticks out in my mind was the correct usage of its and it's. I remember getting a small blasting from him for not using those words correctly. The correct usage has been stuck to me since :)

I remember Mr. Leonard Wong for his unending support to the school's Scrabble club as well even though he was in no way affiliated with the club (note: I was the Scrabble club's secretary... nerdy eh?). We had a few tournaments and on most occasions Mr. Leonard Wong would attend to lend us support. Now I could go on and on about my experiences in Scrabble. Suffice it to say that those were fun times.

Readers of The Star (Malaysian daily newspaper) may know Leonard Wong as Wong Siang Hume the weekly Scrabble columnist. It's a little weird reading his articles at times. While most people know Wong Siang Hume the columnist is the same person as Leonard Wong the Scrabble player, he never refers to Leonard Wong as himself. Perhaps he was trying to avoid any conflict of interest.

Goodbye Mr. Leonard Wong... you will be fondly remembered.

To read a little more about Mr. Leonard Wong please follow this link.