Roger Dean Leitner

Roger Dean Leitner

Feb. 17, 1947 - Dec. 21, 2020

GREENWOOD VILLAGE, Colo. — Roger Dean Leitner died on the Winter Solstice, Dec. 21, 2020.

For over a decade, Leitner had celebrated the Winter Solstice with an annual soirée for his family, friends, and staff associated with the Museum of Outdoor Arts (MOA). The 2020 holiday gathering was canceled due to pandemic-related restrictions; Roger's passing on this date was indeed auspicious. The family held a quiet vigil for Leitner, who died of complications from the novel coronavirus after a series of personal health setbacks in recent years.

Roger Leitner was born in McCook, Neb., on February 17, 1947. He was a basketball star for the McCook Bison 1963-1965. He shattered a host of state records in 1964 and still holds the scoring rank of 39 out of 850 on the Nebraska high school basketball roster of all-class 1,000-point scorers.

Roger was selected as one of the 37 players on the All-America High School squad along with Lew Alcindor (Kareem Abdul Jabar) in 1965. He was the only Associated Press Nebraska All-State Basketball Team player chosen for the team two years in a row. His high school coach Paul Forch recently stated, "What a great kid Roger was and perhaps was the best athlete of his time."

Roger went on to continue his successful basketball career at the University of Nebraska, where he pledged Beta Theta Phi fraternity and earned his degree in construction management. Over the course of his building career, he managed construction of more than a million square feet of commercial building space in Chicago, Omaha, and Denver. In 2008, in the lobby of Palazzo Verdi, the towering office building next door to MOA's Marjorie Park, Leitner finished his masterwork: the 42 foot-diameter "Chartres Labyrinth" designed after the renowned meditative walkway in Chartres Cathedral outside of Paris. Leitner began designing in stone in 1997, often sourcing material from Marble, Colo. His marble sculpture "Chloe,” a memorial for one of the family's beloved dogs, will be installed in MOA's Marjorie Park in 2021.

Leitner was not just a sculptor of stone, he was also a rock-solid family man who kept the home fires burning. In 1981, Roger married Cynthia Madden Leitner, the founder of the Museum of Outdoor Arts (MOA) in Colorado. Along with Leitner's 30-year career in project management, he stepped into various roles for MOA - primarily overseeing structural engineering for hundreds of art installations inside and outside along with renovation of the MOA's live music venue, Fiddlers Green Amphitheatre.

Roger Leitner is survived by his wife, Cynthia Madden Leitner, and the couple's children, John Schuyler Madden (Jessica Brack), Erin Leitner Tracy, Blair Madden Bui, Paul Alexander Leitner and grandchildren, Schuyler Madden, Lily Brown, Walter Madden, Willow Bui, Elle Tracy, and Tyler Tracy.

A memorial service is planned Aug. 7, 2021, at Grand Lake, Colo.