UPDATED July 10, 2017 — Lindenwood board member Jim Shoemake died of leukemia at his St. Louis-area home on June 28.
Shoemake spent several years on Lindenwood’s Board of Directors, with more than 10 of those years as chairman, according to a Lindenwood press release. He was awarded the Sibley Medallion of Honor in 2011, an award given annually to an individual who has exhibited a deep commitment to Lindenwood.
Born in Greenville, Missouri, Shoemake and his wife, Rita, owned a farm near Farmington, Missouri, for almost 50 years where they bred and raised registered quarter horses. According to his obituary, he has three daughters and 11 grandchildren, all of whom survive him. He also is survived by a brother, Bob Shoemake.
According to the obituary, a celebration of Shoemake’s life was scheduled to be presented at an open house from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m. on Friday, July 7, at the Missouri Athletic Club in St. Louis. In lieu of flowers, the family requested that memorial gifts be made to the American Quarter Horse Foundation, P.O. Box 32111, Amarillo, Texas 79120.
Shoemake was a graduate of Washington University and the Saint Louis University School of Law, according to his Lindenwood profile.
He started practicing law at Guilfoil Petzall & Shoemake in 1970 and later served as city attorney and prosecuting attorney for Fenton, Missouri, for six years. He also served with the U.S. Department of Justice in Washington, D.C., and as assistant to the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Missouri.
Throughout his life he was also active in numerous non-for-profit organizations across the country.
He served on the board of directors for the Urological Research Foundation and on the board of directors for the American Quarter Horse Association where he served as president from 2002 to 2003, according to the American Quarter Horse Association.
“I love the Quarter Horses and I find them to be more than anything the thing that relaxes me and brings me down to a tranquil sort of existence,” Shoemake said in The American Quarter Horse Journal in 2008. “(My daughters) and I used to, particularly in the fall, saddle up and be gone so long – just riding through the woods, watching the leaves fall from the tree and just talking as father and daughters.”
