PEORIA — His formal education may have stopped the day he walked into Manual High School on Peoria’s south side and figured it wasn’t for him, but George Shadid’s real-world education helped him spend a lifetime rising through the halls of justice and the corridors of power.
Over more than a half-century in public service, Shadid either enforced the laws or he made them.
The community leader — police officer, sheriff, state senator — died early Saturday morning at the age of 88.
Born in Clinton, Iowa, in the middle of a pack of nine children on May 15, 1929, to a Lebanese immigrant family, Shadid’s family relocated to Peoria during tough economic times in the midst of the Great Depression.
A series of early jobs — driving a cleaning truck for Maloof Cleaners, where he met future mayor Jim Maloof; tending bar at a tavern in Rome — left him a solid work ethic, but the latter also provided the introduction to his beloved wife of 64 years, Lorraine.
Then began a career serving the public that Shadid once described thusly: “Only in this country could a life like this happen to a guy like me.”
George and Lorraine wed in 1953, shortly before Shadid started work for the Peoria Police Department, and had two sons — Jim, now the chief U.S. district judge for central Illinois; and George Jr., an investor who died of brain cancer in 2005.
"When he was home, we were first and foremost," son Jim said. "He was at all our events. He wasn't afraid to tell us if we misplayed a ball or had a bad day. ... He lived in the real world, no illusions, and I think we were better as a result.
"We grew up wanting to please him, but at the same time knowing that if we were doing our best, he was good with that," he said.
In a 23-year career in Peoria’s Police Department, Shadid worked to keep the city’s streets safe before making the leap into politics with a run for Peoria County sheriff — the first Democrat in the 20th century to be elected to the job.
As sheriff, Shadid broke a longstanding logjam with voters who had four times rejected approval of a referendum for a new county jail, winning approval for one in 1985 that still stands today. The County Board named the jail complex after him in 2014.
Re-elected four times, he left the post when appointed to the state Senate, where he represented Peoria, Tazewell and Fulton counties from 1993 to 2006. His often blunt-spoken but always honest manner won him friends at the Capitol. Now-retired Sen. John Sullivan, D-Rushville, described Shadid on his retirement in 2006 as a “no-nonsense, tell it like it is, if-people-don’t-like-it-so-what-that’s-who-I-am-and-where-I-stand” type of guy.”
Shadid served as a mentor to his successor, Dave Koehler, who described him as genuine, no matter the audience.
“He was who he was, in public and in private. You didn’t have two personalities. George was George,” Koehler said. ”... He was the same guy, he was genuine, through and through. What you saw is what you got.”
Sometimes that meant responses a little more forthright than politicians are known for making.
“I think people appreciated that kind of honesty and bluntness George had,” Koehler said. But it was also leavened by this: “He wasn’t afraid to listen either. He could sit down and really hear and understand where people were coming from.”
That included a bipartisan, federal-state gathering of lawmakers that he and then-U.S. Rep. Ray LaHood convened routinely to confront regional problems. Such meetings, LaHood said Saturday, set "the standard of working together, irrespective of politics."
One of the outgrowths of that was the work between the duo to find federal and state money to establish community health clinics around the region, LaHood said.
"George knew how to make the political system work for the common, ordinary citizen," he said. "He knew how to make the political process, irrespective of politics, work and get stuff done."
The goal, son Jim said, was to "identify what was important, what mattered, and what would help the most people and work toward that.
In the Legislature, he and across-the-aisle colleague Rep. David Leitch joined forces in 2002 to secure a $10 million state loan to keep Bartonville’s Keystone Steel and Wire from closing its doors. The repayment on that loan was later parlayed into an economic development fund that Peoria County uses to this day — one of many examples of how Shadid “left this community better than he found it,” Koehler said.
Shadid also pushed the state to assume control of Wildlife Prairie Park to ensure its long-term viability. That status persisted until earlier this decade, when it returned to more financially stable private hands.
Those efforts took place under GOP Gov. George Ryan, who spoke to the family Wednesday to share his gratitude for working with Shadid.
In the Senate he also forged a friendship with a then little-known colleague named Barack Obama that persisted over the decades.
Obama always made a point to get in touch with his pal, including asking after him following a 2016 speech in Springfield and reaching out by phone to reminisce about their days in the Capitol. And on Friday night, Obama called to speak with Jim Shadid.
"He talked about how special dad was to him, how much he enjoyed their friendship," Jim Shadid said. "He said, 'Give your mom and dad love from Michelle and I.' And, of course, I told him that dad thought he was the greatest thing in the world."
Shadid’s bipartisan bona fides date back to his entry into politics. At age 48, having risen to the rank of lieutenant in the Peoria Police Department, Shadid was aided by a Republican — Circuit Judge Robert Manning — in his first race for public office, for the sheriff’s post.
Though elected as a Democrat, Shadid’s voting record showed an independence that reflected a maxim he expressed while announcing his retirement: “I did what I thought was best.”
That was as important to him as another lesson, impressed upon him by his family and passed down, simple but firm: “Never shame the Shadid name.”
His life’s path showed a determination to always keep that in mind.
Chris Kaergard can be reached at ckaergard@pjstar.com or 686-3255. Follow him on Twitter @ChrisKaergard.