2006 NETWORKING® MAGAZINE’S DAVID AWARD HONOREE.

REV. REGINALD TUGGLE

Executive Assistant to the President, Nassau Community College,
Pastor, Memorial Presbyterian Church

When you meet Rev. Reginald Tuggle, you’ll
most likely receive one of his characteristic
bear hugs or strong handshakes. His warm,
genuine personality and good humor has touched
many lives. From the members of Memorial
Presbyterian Church in Roosevelt, he has extended
his love and sense of community to people in nations
around the world.

Tuggle hails from Denver, Colorado, growing up in
the attic apartment of an old house where the kitchen
consisted of a hot plate in the basement. His mom
tells a story about a five-year-old boy who said he
was going to become a preacher. Young “Reggie” was
a studious child who had a thirst for learning. He
went to Bishop College in Dallas, Texas, washing cars,
moving furniture and waiting tables to pay his way,
spent his junior year abroad studying at Central
Philippine University, and earned a bachelor’s degree
in philosophy and psychology.

Tuggle came to New York in 1969 on a Rockefeller
Scholarship, enrolling in the Master of Divinity
degree program at Union Theological Seminary. He
pursued a PhD at Yale University, traveling to Ghana
in Africa to study the ethical implications of multinational
corporate investments in third world countries.
In 1973, Tuggle became pastor of a small, fledgling
Presbyterian church in Roosevelt with just under 50
members. Over the next 30 years, through divine
inspiration perhaps, he transformed Memorial
Presbyterian Church into a congregation of over

1,000, now the largest, most community-involved,
mission-giving church in the Long Island Presbytery.

His church’s success, says Tuggle, developed
through “the mystique” they created. The church
began to hold forums on social issues, bringing the
congregants personal knowledge and empowerment.
Forums, such as “Political Impotency,” showed people
that by exercising your right to vote, you become a
community of power; “Taxation without
Representation” brought better government services,
and “Why Johnny Can’t Read” discussed the failings
of local public schools. Memorial welcomed well-
known guest speakers, like Coretta Scott King and
Jesse Jackson, and created a masterful music department,
its choir giving concerts in Paris, Vienna and
Cuba.

Tuggle instilled a sense of community from within
initiating new ministries and focusing on youth
through Christian Charmettes (girls 8-11), Christian
Charm (girls 12-17), Manhood Training (boys 8-17),
and the Memorial Scholarship Program. Since 2000,
more than $200,000 has been awarded to church members
who graduated from high school and went on to
higher education.

Recognizing the limitation of growth imposed by
church status, Tuggle helped the faith community
found two nonprofit corporations. “The Memorial
Youth Outreach Corporation was able to apply for
philanthropic and government dollars,” notes Tuggle,
augmenting church donations. Working through the

Roosevelt junior and senior high schools, the Council
matches mentors with at risk teens and provides scholarship
awards upon completion of the program.

“In response to economic disparity in the community,”
Tuggle adds, “we applied for a $500,000 federal
grant to buy abandoned houses that had become
havens for prostitution and drug abuse,” through the
Memorial Economic Development Corporation. “We
hired local contractors, put on new roofs, added
kitchens, baths, plumbing, wiring and fixed up the outsides,
and sold them to low income wage earners.” It
was a win-win situation: improving the community,
and providing jobs for local contractors and housing for
new owners.

Tuggle’s enthusiasm shines when he speaks of
MEDC’s project to build a state-of-the-art community
health clinic in Roosevelt. The corporation won a
Nassau County request-for-proposal, bought County
property for $250,000, borrowed $3.5 million from the
federal government and accepted a $366,000 federal
grant to make the project happen. In October, 10 years
after the project was initiated, the groundbreaking ceremony
was held. When open, the County’s Medical
Center will lease space and provide the doctors and
nurses. “The new health clinic will provide quality
health care, free-of-charge.” comments Tuggle. “Anyone
can go there; they don’t have to have insurance.”

In addition to Tuggle’s busy life as pastor, he has
always worked in a secular capacity, beginning as executive
director of an anti-poverty agency in Roosevelt
and as founding director of the Urban League of Long
Island. He became executive assistant to the Town of
Hempstead Presiding Supervisor in 1979 and spent 14
years as director of public affairs at Newsday, where his
responsibilities included public relations, direction of
the company’s philanthropy, and special events, such as
Newsday’s Long Island Spelling Bee, Marathon and
Regatta.

But family always came first. When his daughters
Karleena and Regine were 8 and 10 years old, Tuggle’s
wife died of breast cancer. Realizing his responsibility
to care for them, he left his job at Newsday, and devoted
a year to his children. He says he wanted to be there “to
give them a hug before they got on the bus” and “give
them the proper intellectual stimulus, going to museums
and plays, taking trips. A lot of kids don’t have
that.” He currently serves as executive assistant to the
president and college relations director at Nassau
Community College.

Tuggle’s international travels have taken him to
numerous church conferences around the world, and
he’s been a keynote speaker in Havana, Cuba, and at a
NATO conference in Belgium. He attended the first
World Peace Conference in Israel in 1987. In 2000, he
visited Kenya to review the Presbyterian Church missions
and spoke to 20,000 people in Haiti. Tuggle was
among a small group of international citizens invited
by Mikhail Gorbachev to tour the U.S.S.R. Upon his
return, he presented a dozen lectures, spreading an
awareness of the Soviet Union’s turn toward capitalism.

Tuggle married Evette Beckett four-and-a-half years
ago. The couple lives in Glen Cove, and in addition to
Karleena, a surgical intern, and Regine, they have a
daughter, Lauren Beckett-Jackson, 18 years old.

Looking to the future, Tuggle would like to set
aside time to write about self actualization, learning to
live without excuse making, and overcoming
diversity. To break down Long Island’s (Not In My
Backyard) NIMBYism environment, he counsels,
“ Get to know people and their cultures. There are
wonderful people here from all cultures who are bright
and professional.”

NETWORKING® January 2006