Episode 27 John Tuggle -”Shreveport-Bossier: My City, My Community, My Home”

John Tuggle, Executive Director of Shreve Memorial Library, sits down with Jeffrey Goodman, Director of Marketing and Development for the YMCA of Northwest Louisiana, to answer the following questions:

 

0:36 1. John, since 2015 you have been the Executive Director of Shreve Memorial Library, a 21-branch public library system serving the City of Shreveport and the surrounding Caddo Parish.

 

I would like to begin with the longest question I have ever asked a guest. This is an excerpt from an article in the Shreveport Times from February 9, 1920:

 

Speaking of the supreme needs of Shreveport at the First Baptist Church Sunday night, Dr. Dodd, M.D., said:

 

“There are three outstanding needs for Shreveport at the present time: First of all we need the public library. It is a necessity just as much as banks and business houses. Second, we need new school buildings, with auditorium facilities in which school spirit can be created and where public lecturers and moving picture machines can supplement the routine of mere book learning. And, third, we need a great Y.M.C.A. building. The Shreveport spirit is nobly progressive and aggressive along every line, but it must be admitted that we are backward on these three things mentioned. Many other towns of much less importance and with much less wealth than Shreveport, enjoys the privileges of libraries and Y.M.C.A. buildings."

 

All this to say, why is Shreve Memorial Library so important to our community. Or, in other words, what would our community be without Shreve Memorial Library?

 

10:16 2. I read some about it but am unsure of the current status. Talk to me if you could about the possible partnership between Southern University Law Center and the downtown Shreve Memorial Library.

 

14:45 3. I read that in the last year or so, the Shreve Memorial Library has taken on yet another role for the community, that of an entrepreneurial support engine. Tell me about this new initiative and some of the services and resources the library now provides to small business owners and entrepreneurs.

 

20:46 4. You grew up in the small town of Hot Coffee, MS and came to Shreveport from Savannah after working with their library system for nearly nine years. You are extremely involved in our community.

 

To name but a few things that I know, you serve on the board of the Gingerbread House and United Way, the Advisory Committee for the NWLA La-STEM Innovation Center, are an active Rotarian, and you try to live by Rotary’s credo “Service above Self.”

 

I recently asked one of my previous guests this same question. A couple of weeks ago, I was in a meeting at the Shreveport-Bossier Convention and Tourist Bureau and one of the people there made the statement that we need to work on moving our community from “a me community” to “a we community”.

 

As someone who clearly sees this as a “we community”, how do we get more people to live by “Service above Self?”

 

28:34 5. As I mentioned before, you grew up in Hot Coffee, MS and have lived in a number of other cities. To name but a few, I know you have spent time in Hattiesburg, Houston and Savannah.

 

I am always fascinated by the way that people who did not grew up here view our community. Where do you feel we struggle the most compared to other places you have lived?

 

33:22 6. Lastly, what do we do as well or better than the other cities where you have lived?