Terrence "Terry" Shea, a long-time Washington area reporter and editor and 42-year Club member, dies at 80

Terrence "Terry" Shea, a long-time Washington area reporter and editor and 42-year member of the National Press Club, died Sept. 20. He was 80 and lived in Silver Spring, Md.

Shea's career included stints at the National Observer, Detroit News, Gannett News Service, Nation's Business, Kiplinger Washington Editors, Dow Jones, and HR Magazine.

The following is from an obituary written by his son, Kevin, managing producer and supervising reporter for N.J. Advance Media in Trenton, N.J.:

Shea was an editor and newsman for nearly 50 years, retiring in 2010 at 70 years old, a goal he’d set decades before maintain even as journalism underwent massive disruptions.

He was a devoted husband, father to four, grandfather to 12 and friend to many. He lived nearly his entire adult life in Montgomery County, Md. Although he and his wife of 57 years, Pat, lived in three homes, all in Silver Spring, he considered himself a Washingtonian at heart.

In the past 20 years, he spent time in the Jersey Shore towns Belmar and Longport, and vacationed in Ocean City, New Jersey.

Born and raised in Philadelphia, he graduated from St. Joseph's Prep in 1957, and from the University of Notre Dame in 1961. Like many graduates, he became a dedicated Notre Dame alumni, a “Golden Domer,” who returned to the campus occasionally, and in later years treated family members to an annual trip to watch the Fighting Irish football team play an East Coast game.

Shea, called "Terry" by friends, was a craftsman of the written word, and had exquisite command of the English language. After Notre Dame, he earned his masters degree in magazine journalism in 1963 from the University of Iowa and worked as an editor in the mid-1960s at Pflaum, a publisher of religious texts and periodicals in Dayton, Ohio.

A position at the National Observer, the national, weekly newspaper published by Dow Jones, brought him to Washington in 1967, and for many years there he covered religion.

Shea covered Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. on his last visits to the nation’s capital, interviewed the Rev. Jesse Jackson, and spent a day in Pittsburgh talking to a Presbyterian minister named Fred Rogers for a story about the man’s new television show: Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood.

While at the Observer, he was honored with the 1969 Supple Award for Religion Feature Writing from the Religion News Association, and in 1970 was named a fellow of the Religious Public Relations Council for his reporting on religion news.

When the Observer folded in 1977, Terry moved to the Detroit News’ Washington Bureau, where he was a reporter and editor, and his assignments included covering the Gramm-Rudman-Hollings Budget Reduction Act. At the News, he joined the National Press Club, and later earned Silver Owl status from the organization, as a 25-year member.

Shea worked at Gannett News Service briefly before moving on to Nation’s Business in the late 1980s as editor, where he rose to deputy editor before the publication ceased in 1999.

For the next decade, Terry worked for Kiplinger and Dow Jones financial publications before retiring as an editor for the Society of Human Resources Management’s (SHRM) HR Magazine.

All along, he was involved in his faith and his community. He taught religious education at St. Michael’s Catholic parish in downtown Silver Spring in the 1970s, was a timer at his kids’ summer swim meets at Northwest Branch Pool in the 1980s, and when grandkids came along starting in the 1990s, he and his wife spent countless weekends traversing the I-95 corridor to see their athletic competitions, school events and performances, in New Jersey, Delaware and Virginia.

Although his career was long and varied, his greatest accomplishment, we believe he would say, was his role as a father, and protector.
He wanted to keep everyone safe and sound, and checked on his children and their families with a fatherly love that will be sorely missed.

He never stopped reminding us to keep more than quarter tank of gas in our cars, have flashlights around the house in case of a power outage, was known to clean a loved one’s headlights right before they left on a road trip.

When his four children were adults, he started a tradition of handing them a $20 bill when he shook their hand goodbye following a visit or family gathering – in case they needed gas, a snack for the ride home or a gallon of milk. They became to be known as “roadies.”

Shea preferred a dark suit, a gin martini with a twist, and carried himself with a dignified air that led his children to sometimes refer to him as ‘The Senator,’ for his wise, patriarchal standing - even though he was never a politician.

He had a lifelong sweet tooth for three Philadelphia institutions: Stock’s Bakery pound cake, Tastykakes and Breyers Ice Cream.
Last but not least, Shea was an Irishman. Proud of his heritage, he practiced it silently, without parades or festivals, in a plain, stoic manner handed down by the generations above him, who arrived in Philadelphia and worked hard with a steadfast pride to do well and take care of their family.

Terry and Patricia Shea were married in 1962, several years after a summer vacation meeting on the Ocean City, N.J. boardwalk in the late 1950s. They were together for over 60 years following that first encounter, a setup by his cousin.

Shea is survived by wife Patricia, their children and spouses: Kathleen Shea Pié and John Pié; Maura Shea Connelly and Kenneth Connelly; Kevin Shea and Kimberley Heyns Shea; and Meghan Shea Frigiola and Mark Frigiola. And his grandchildren: Sean, Brendan, Kierstin, Gavin, Caroline, Cara, Kacey, Colin, Chelsea, Dylan, Ryan and Owen.