The Hon. George N. Leighton turns 100

George Neves Leighton, retired federal judge, former assistant state attorney general, onetime president of the NAACP and a longtime Class A player, turns 100 years old today.

Happy birthday, Judge Leighton.

Cook County Criminal Courts Building renamed in honor of Judge George N. Leighton

The Honorable George N. Leighton Criminal Court Building

This happened a couple months ago, but I missed the story.

Sun-Times story here.  October 22nd will be Judge Leighton's 100th birthday: when he's in town on June 29th, perhaps we can get him to play an exhibition match with Erik Karklins.

Judge Leighton profiled in this month's Chess Life

Check out Tim Redman's profile (subscribers only).

Judge Leighton was profiled on this blog last year. He beat me twenty years or so ago at the National Open in Chicago. I seem to have conveniently misplaced the scoresheet.

The Honorable George Neves Leighton

George Leighton (more on Wikipedia) graduated from Howard University in 1940, was a Captain in the U.S. Army during World War II, graduated from Harvard Law in 1946, and had a incredibly impressive legal career culminating in his appointment to the U.S. District Court, Northern District of Illinois, in 1976.   He served on the Federal bench until 1987. (Oh, and he beat me in the 1991 National Open.)

In this 1982 game, Judge Leighton was 69 years old and paired against a recent Soviet émigré who had become Chicago's top-ranked player, Leonid Kaushansky.  (Leo would later share the 1994 U.S. Open title with Albert Chow and Dmitry Gurevich, among others.)  One might expect a blowout.  Indeed, the game was rather one-sided:

At his peak, Judge Leighton was a strong expert.  Still more on his chess career at The Chess Drum.

October 22 will be Judge Leighton's 98th birthday!