Leo Hamilton, this year’s Golden Deeds Award winner, grew up in South Baton Rouge five blocks from LSU, where he would one day earn his undergraduate and law degrees.

“I sat on my front steps and listened to LSU games,” Hamilton said. “We could hear the game announcer, Sid Crocker, from our front steps.”

Hamilton is named after his father of the same name, who was a machinist at the Holsum Bread factory on Choctaw Drive -- “We had a lot of bread at my house,” he said.

His mother, Myrtle, worked as a housekeeper, before returning to school and becoming a nurse's aide.

“My parents pushed us to give back to the community,” Hamilton, 74, said. “My dad was very firm on that – you give back to the community.”

The Golden Deeds Award is presented by The Advocate and the Inter-Civic Counsel of

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