Paul Tunkle was born and raised in New York City. His parents were secular Jews. He attended City College of New York for two years and then lived and worked in Boulder, Colorado, where he met and married Judy in 1972. That same year they moved to mid-coast Maine. In 1974 he was baptized at St. Peter’s Episcopal Church, Rockland, Maine. They lived for most of that decade in Union, Maine, had three children and were members successively of St. Giles, Jefferson, and St. John the Baptist, Thomaston. He was employed as an accountant by F.J. O’Hara & Sons, Inc., in Rockland. In 1981 he earned a B.S. in Business Administration from the University of Maine.

Then they moved to Manhattan while attending the General Theological Seminary, where he earned his M. Div. He was ordained a deacon at St. Luke’s Cathedral in Portland in June 1984, and ordained a priest one year later in North Carolina. After ordination he served as Assistant Rector at St. Luke’s, Salisbury NC (1984 – 1987), and Rector of Holy Trinity, South River NJ (1987 – 1993). In 1993 he earned a D. Min. from the School of Theology at Drew University. He was then Rector of St. James, Alexandria, LA (1993 – 2001), and Rector of the Church of the Redeemer, Baltimore MD (2001 – 2014). After retirement in 2014 they moved back to Maine and he served one quarter time as Priest in Charge of St. Philip’s Wiscasset (2014-2016).

Judy and Paul live on 38 acres in Dresden, Maine since 2014, farming and managing their forest land. They are living and driving at net zero thanks to solar technology. Paul is a regular priest at half a dozen parishes in the area throughout the year.