'He made you feel important'
April 10, 2007
BY JOE SWICKARD
FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER

Surrounded by stacks of newspapers, arrays of photographs and friendships stretching from the governor's mansion in Lansing to St. Rose's on Detroit's east side, Neal Shine held court once again Monday.

The parking lot of Verheyden Funeral Home in Grosse Pointe Park and the surrounding streets filled up early for the first of two days of visitation for Shine, 76, of St. Clair Shores, who died April 3.

"There was nobody who didn't like him," said Joe Schute, 77, a classmate from St. Rose. "He had that knack -- he made you feel important the minute you met him."

Former Gov. James Blanchard was one of the early callers, as was Pete Waldmeir, now a Grosse Pointe Woods City Council member, retired Detroit News columnist -- and ever so briefly a Free Press employee before being hired back by the News in one of the papers' skirmishes.

"I worked for him for about three hours," Waldmeir said. "I'm still waiting for my severance pay."

In a career that spanned 45 years, Shine went from $3.55-a-day newsroom messenger to Free Press publisher and columnist.
He drew a paycheck, said his brother Bill, but it was abiding romance that kept him at the newspaper.
"Neal loved -- and I mean he really loved -- the Free Press," he said.

Maybe Neal Shine did help win a Pulitzer Prize and steer a major newspaper, but he also was a hell of a neighbor, said Jan O'Leary, who lived next to him for seven years in Grosse Pointe Park.

"He didn't care what was on your lawn, just so it was green and the kids could play ball," she said. "You know I wanted to dig a tunnel so I could visit and never have to go out in inclement weather."

The wife of an attorney and sister-in-law to two more, O'Leary said: "I don't know if I loved him because he was Neal or because he wasn't a lawyer."

"He did so much for Detroit, like helping my dad raise money for Holy Trinity," said Julie Dinan, daughter of the late Judge Vince Brennan.
But always, he was a friend, Schute said.

Shine taught at Oakland University where Schute's wife, Frances, was a secretary. "Neal would go by and look in her office and say, 'Schute, I need a hug,' " he said. "And he'd get one, too."

Contact JOE SWICKARD at 313-222-8769 or jswickard@freepress.com.