\u201cThrough his leadership and vision, Dr. Les Tuttle was instrumental in\u202fbuilding a strong foundation for USF St.\u202fPetersburg during its early years,\u201d a university spokesperson told The Crow\u2019s Nest.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Several of Tuttle\u2019s colleagues said that his impact on the St. Petersburg campus laid the groundwork for future generations of students through his kindness and inviting demeanor.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cFrom my perspective, my early impressions of him were very positive. He was a very warm person that made people feel comfortable right off the spot,\u201d Darryl Paulson, professor emeritus of history at USF, said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Paulson stated that amid a lack of on-campus resources and funding during Tuttle\u2019s time at USF St. Petersburg, which began in 1968, he worked to forge connections with local community leaders to improve the academic experience for professors and students alike.\u00a0<\/p>\n
From 1939 to 1950, the property that would become USF St. Petersburg served as a training center for the U.S. Maritime Service. From 1950 to 1965, it sat vacant.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cHe was dealing with a university that was\u2026a former merchant marine barracks \u2014he wanted things to grow,\u201d Paulson said.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
USF St. Petersburg\u2019s special projects facilitator, Joan \u2018Sudsy\u2019 Tschiderer, was a student during Tuttle\u2019s administrative tenure. She echoed Paulson\u2019s sentiment, saying that Tuttle sought to make everyone on the St. Petersburg campus feel welcome.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cHe was a high-energy person with calming stability. He would always initiate conversations with students, and it never felt hierarchical,\u201d Tschiderer said. \u201cIt always seemed like he wanted to make every individual a part of the campus.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
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Written by: Matthew McGovern<\/a> on January 27, 2026.
Last revised by: Julia Ferrara<\/a>January 26, 2026. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Photo courtesy of USFSP campus archives\u00a0 By Matthew McGovern Lester Tuttle, University of South Florida St. Petersburg\u2019s first…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":133476,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[202,204,203,199,201,200],"class_list":{"0":"post-133475","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-st-petersburg","8":"tag-st-pete","9":"tag-st-pete-headlines","10":"tag-st-pete-news","11":"tag-st-petersburg","12":"tag-st-petersburg-headlines","13":"tag-st-petersburg-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133475","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=133475"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133475\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/133476"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=133475"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=133475"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=133475"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}