Scroll down for this year's honorees and their bios

2022 Public Official of the Year

The Hon. Judy Griffin, New York State Assemblywoman

Representing the 21st Assembly District, which includes the Village of Rockville Centre, Assemblywoman Judy Griffin became the first woman elected to represent our district in 2018. Re-elected in 2020, Judy is currently running for her third term in November.

Assemblywoman Griffin’s commitment to our community is reflected in her years of civic engagement, including as a Brownie and Girl Scout Leader, active PTA member, President of the Newcomers Club, and as a leader of the “Opt-Out” movement to eliminate our school’s standardized testing practices. Judy first entered public service as  State Senator Todd Kaminsky’s Director of Community Outreach. Judy is a life-long Long Islander, and she and her husband have resided in Rockville Centre for almost 30 years. They raised four children and recently became first time proud grandparents. 

Judy is a graduate of SUNY Oneonta, where she earned her degree in Business Economics, and then began her career in the financial industry. She later attended the Institute for Integrative Nutrition and became an Integrative Health Coach. She also founded businesses related to health coaching and wellness programs, and authored her book Flourish Beyond 50.

As an Assemblywoman, Judy has been a committed advocate for the environment and public education, and a strong supporter of unions, law enforcement, and a woman’s right to choose. In addition to providing record investments in our public schools and infrastructure, Judy’s achievements in her short time in office include banning toxic substances like mercury in our schools’ floors, new laws to reduce racism in real estate, and passing a landmark study of noise and air pollution in communities around Kennedy and LaGuardia Airports. She has supported new legislation to expand child care, help veterans and new mothers, provide programs for crime victims and trauma survivors, prevent deaths from opioids, and update New York’s cancer mapping study.

Laura J. Burns - TV and Book Writer, Founding Member of Moms Demand Action

After graduating from Barnard College, Ms. Burns began her professional journey as a book editor of Young Adult series including the well-known Sweet Valley High, Goosebumps, and Roswell High; the latter became the TV show Roswell and is the basis of the current show Roswell NM. With her writing partner, Melinda Metz, she wrote TV episodes for Roswell, The Dead Zone, and 1-800-Missing, as well as several pilots for 20th Century Fox television.

Laura, her husband, and three children moved from California to Rockville Centre in 2011. Since then, Laura has applied her professional skills to her role as a community activist. She was a founding member of “Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America”, now the nation’s largest gun violence prevention group. Laura served as the organization’s New York State Communications lead, helped establish the “Moms Demand Action” group in Nassau County, and heads this group’s community outreach efforts. In 2019 and 2021, Laura entered the world of politics, running against the incumbent for the Nassau County Legislature District 6 seat.

Elysa LeBron - Social Work Therapist, former Clinical Director of the Rosen Center for Law Enforcement and Military Personnel

Ms. LeBron was born and raised in Rockville Centre. After graduating from Southside High School, she earned her BA from Cornell University and a Master’s Degree in Non-Profit Arts Management at Indiana University. She then enjoyed a rich professional journey in arts management working first on children’s arts programming at the Kennedy Center and then with artists who performed at Lincoln Center, Carnegie Hall, and the Marlboro Music Festival. A position as Director of Marketing and Personal Appearances for the Miss Universe organization brought her to Los Angeles and to a career in television. Elysa worked in production for NBC, HBO, and Warner Brothers.

In 1993, a family tragedy brought her back to Rockville Centre and to dramatic changes in her personal life. Elysa became the adoptive parent of her two young nephews, and in 2002, she married her husband Dr. David Kaminsky. Her professional life was transformed after Elysa earned her Masters in Social Work and became a clinical social worker in programs for traumatized vulnerable populations including children and adults who lost loved ones after 9/11. In 2008, she was named the Clinical Director of North Shore’s Rosen Center for Law Enforcement and Military Personnel. For this work, which focused on treatment for service-related trauma, Elysa received the Federal Law Enforcement Community Service Award.

Sharon Sheppard - Assistant Director RVC Dr. Martin Luther King Community Center, Founder Sharon’s Pantry

Ms. Sheppard has been a resident of Rockville Centre for 25 years. She has held her position at the MLK Center for the past 16 years and has made many significant contributions to her community. She is dedicated to meeting the needs of vulnerable residents and to developing life-enhancing programs for children, young people, and adults. In March 2020, responding to the pandemic’s impact on food insecurity, she started “Sharon’s Pantry”. This extraordinary program continues to provide weekly food staples for 64-90 local families and is one of many she has developed to meet community needs, including the “MLK Chef’s Academy for Children and Teens”.

Sharon has a background in education, mortuary science, and nursing. She identifies herself as a breast cancer warrior, having battled this disease for the past two years. Her own words best reflect why this courageous and caring woman is a 2022 honoree – “To make an impact in someone’s life for the better, is always the goal. You don’t need accolades for something you are passionate about. I am passionate about children and people in need.”

Debra Siegel - Principal Law Clerk to Nassau County Supreme Court Judge Helene Gugerty

Ms. Siegel is a graduate of Queens College, and of the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law. Before assuming her current position, she was a senior staff attorney in the Legal Aid Society of Queens. There is perhaps no better indication of Debra’s commitment to the underserved than the 34 years that she represented indigent clients in criminal matters, from arraignment to final disposition. In her current position, Debra serves as counsel to Judge Gugerty, presiding over felony matters.

Debra has been an active member of the Village of Rockville Centre, where she, her husband, and two sons have resided for over 15 years. She represented the PTA on the Drug, Alcohol, and Violence Prevention Task Force, and was a member of the South Side Middle School and South Side High School’s PTA Executive Board. Her dedication to civic engagement is also reflected in her being a founding member of both Indivisible RVC and Raising Voices USA, and in her 2019 campaign for the District 7 seat on the Nassau County legislature. Debra describes herself as an exercise enthusiast and enjoys running, calisthenics and weight training.

Tonya Thomas - National Director of Programs Tourette Association of America

Ms. Thomas is a graduate of Boston University’s College of Communications, and of the Fordham University Graduate School of Social Service. Tonya, her husband, and two daughters have been Rockville Centre residents since 2004. Among other civic activities, she serves on the board of the RVC Education Foundation. Her career began in the entertainment industry, working for, among others, Entertainment Tonight, The Montel Williams Show, and HBO Films. She then moved from New York to Los Angeles and became the Marketing Research Manager for Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation.

After 13 years in the entertainment world, Tonya assumed notable positions in education and non-profit services. As the Director of Partnership Development and Programming at SUNY College at Old Westbury, she helped to create and managed the unique award-winning First Year Community Engagement Program. She then became an Associate Program Officer with the Long Island Community Foundation, where she helped establish the Long Island Racial Equity Donor Collaborative. Currently, she serves as the National Director of Programs for the Tourette Association of America, where, among other responsibilities, she manages the organization’s first Neurodiversity Workforce Development Program.