“I’ve always liked to help other people, and, having grown up poor, it was easy to recognize that there were people worse off who needed help,” he says. “I just found a need and tried to fill it.”

It sounds so simple, but the results of his efforts are seen around the world, from his adopted hometown of Idaho Falls, Idaho, to Ghana, Guatemala, Vietnam and other places around the nation and the world.

“Each time I would work in one area, food or something else, I would get a phone call from someone needing help in another area,” he says. “People kept passing my name around, so I got involved in all sorts of things.”

After growing up in Greensboro – Washington Street School and Dudley High – he graduated from A&T in 1947. He was a member of the first four-year class of A&T’s Reserve Officer Training Program. He spent 20 years in the Army reserves, rising from first lieutenant to lieutenant colonel.

After graduating from A&T, Reeves looked for a law school. He had three requirements: It had to be in a state that didn’t have legalized segregation, it had to be inexpensive, and it had to be an old, established school. The University of Idaho met all of his requirements.

“Two days after I enrolled, they changed the application form to require a photograph,” he says with a laugh. “They didn’t want to make that mistake again.”

Some mistake. Earlier this month, Reeves was honored with one of the Defense Department’s highest awards, the Outstanding Public Service Award. The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff signs off on that one.

Two years ago, the Idaho State Bar honored him with its Service Award, given to Idaho lawyers and judges for exceptional contributions to justice and to their communities.

“His humanitarian activities have included working with local business leaders to facilitate donations of more than $300,000 in 2011 alone to be distributed to soup kitchens and various homeless shelters and charities,” the Bar said.

“The food drives led to collecting used computers for migrant workers’ schools, and ultimately hundreds of computers to be sent to poor school districts in Mississippi. These drives also facilitated the opening of offices in Idaho Falls and Boise to assist low-income persons obtain free medication from pharmaceutical manufacturers worth $10 million in 2009 and 2010.”

Reeves’s work extends beyond Idaho and the United States. Take Guatemala, for example. “I went there once with some friends, and I met an engineer who had gone to school in the states,” Reeves says. “One evening this young man said, ‘I would surely like to teach young children to use computers, but they don’t have any computers.’ I said, ‘They will.’”

He sensed the engineer wasn’t so sure about that. “So when we were parting that evening, I shook his hand and would not let go. I said, ‘Jose Manuel, you’re used to talking to people who say things they don’t mean or who make promises they don’t intend to keep. But you haven’t met me before. I said you will have computers, therefore you will have computers. You can take that to the bank.”

When Reeves returned to Idaho, he made some calls and collected three dozen used computers, which he shipped to Guatemala. The engineer’s company was so grateful, it built a school, hired a teacher and said, “If Mr. Reeves will get us more computers, we’ll build another school.”

If you say that to Reginald Reeves, you better be ready to start building.

“I told him, we’re going to make your company build more than one additional school. I shipped more computers.”

Reeves saw an opportunity where others merely saw a problem for their office manager.

“Everyone has old computers,” Reeves says. “You can’t sell them, you can’t trade them in. The landfill doesn’t want them. So I would go to law offices, real estate offices and others and say, ‘I want your last year’s computers.’” And off they went to Guatemala.

That kind of effort didn’t go unnoticed. When a friend was retiring from his dental practice, he told Reeves, “I hear you collect stuff. How would you like my entire office?” The dental chair, X-ray machine, tools, the whole place.

“I called my friend in Guatemala and said, ‘I have another project for your boss. You tell your boss I want him to build a free dental clinic, and I want him to get in touch with the university there and have them put their fourth-year students there to run the clinic.’”

The company built the clinic and put in an apartment for the dental students to live in. Many of the patients had never seen a dentist before.

“And things just built up from there.”

A retired U.S. ambassador had built a library in Ghana. “He was putting in a computer laboratory, and he told his board, ‘We’ll build the lab, but don’t worry about the computers, my friend Reg will take care of that. And then he told me.” Soon, computers were shipped to Ghana.

The mayor of a small town in Idaho visited Vietnam. There, workers in a hospital told him they had to turn many people away from the hospital because they didn’t have enough equipment and supplies.

“Like the ambassador, he said, ‘Don’t worry, we’ll take care of that.’ He took care of it by calling me when he got back.” Reeves arranged $350,000 worth of hospital supplies to be delivered.

Then a friend retired from his orthopedic surgery practice. He gave Reeves his surgical equipment, $1.2 million worth. Next stop: Vietnam.

Another friend met some sherpas in Nepal. They, too, had a badly under-equipped hospital. Reeves sent $63,000 worth of medical equipment.

These days, Reeves is practicing law for only half of the week. “I cut back so I could spend more time doing what I prefer to do, such as helping people. I collect food, clothing, toys, books from various businesses.” Among the recipients are veterans’ families, homeless shelters, domestic violence centers, and Head Start programs.

Over the years he has also donated 33 gallons of blood through the Red Cross.

This weekend, the need is for Thanksgiving dinner for veterans and their families. Reeves was contacted by a group called Higher Ground, which assists wounded veterans. He spent a couple weeks helping the group arrange dinner.

It’s clear that veterans have a special place in Reeves’s work. He does pro bono legal work for them. And when he was told about the new Aggie Student VETS Center (Veteran’s Educational Transition Support) for veterans studying at A&T, the response was just what you might think.

“The people who are in charge of your veterans’ program, if they need any help, tell them to feel free to call me.”

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