SALLY SHEEHAN / 1911-2003
Publicist gave funds
for future nurses
and journalists
Longtime Honolulu publicist Sally Lieberman Sheehan did not leave news of her bequest for the reading of her will. She announced her gift of $300,000 to future generations of journalists and nurses in a Honolulu Star-Bulletin column.
Sheehan left scholarship endowments of $200,000 in journalism and $100,000 in nursing to the University of Hawaii.
Sally Sheehan: She contributed funds to scholarships years before her death
She told Star-Bulletin columnist Bud Smyser that the scholarships are a memorial to her husband, Ed Sheehan, radio and television personality and author of many books and travel articles, who died in 1992.
Sally Sheehan died at home yesterday after a long illness. She had celebrated her birthday Sunday with ice cream and cake, but her age remained her secret, even from close friends, said friend Betsey Essoyan.
She and her husband did public relations work for travel and restaurant businesses here for many years.
Smyser wrote that her work as an unpaid campaign publicist for the late John A. Burns, in his run to become Democratic governor of Hawaii, led author James Michener to comment that she should be named "woman of the year."
A dedicated Democrat, she also conducted the publicity campaign that led to Tom Gill's election as lieutenant governor.
Sheehan was born in Bay City, Mich., in 1911. She came to Hawaii in the 1940s as a member of the WAVES, the Navy Women's Reserve, in which she reached the rank of lieutenant commander.
She is survived by niece Karen Conachan Smith, nephews Mark Magidson and Robert and Gordon Perlman, stepdaughter Katha Sheehan Stone and a step-grandson.
There will be no services.
Inurnment will be in the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific, Punchbowl.
Ultimate Cremation Services of Hawaii handled arrangements.
