Father's spirit guides his Florida State family
After their dad's death, Joe O'Shea became a leader to his siblings.
By SHANNON COLAVECCHIO-VAN SICKLER, Times Staff Writer
Published September 11, 2007
TALLAHASSEE - It's the end of the first day of fall classes, and the four O'Shea siblings are standing on the back patio of Mykal's apartment near the Florida State University campus.
Mykal, the only girl, teases Jesse, the youngest, about all the 'Noles girls who love his "golden blond locks." Robert, the oldest, tries to trip Mykal. She smacks him on the arm and laughs.
Joe, the Palm Harbor High standout turned FSU student body president, chuckles as he scrolls through e-mails on his BlackBerry.
Robert turns suddenly to Joe: "Hey, where's your necklace?"
Joe's smile fades as he pulls from under his shirt a gold cross -- the one he wears in memory of their father.
"Have you noticed since school started how much we miss Dad's calls?" Robert says, touching his matching cross. "After class today, I totally wanted to call him. But I couldn't."
Joe and Jesse look away. Mykal starts to cry.
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Jim O'Shea lived through his children, especially at the end.
Kidney disease tethered him to a home dialysis machine in recent years, but the Tampa Bay businessman remained his offsprings' constant cheerleader and confidante.
"After I had a test, he would always call," says Mykal, 20. "He'd say, 'Nurse Mykal, can I please speak to Nurse Mykal?'"
"Dad wanted us all to be lawyers," Jesse says. "O'Shea, O'Shea and O'Shea."
"He was my best friend, basically," Robert says.
Jim O'Shea died May 16, just past 7 p.m. He was 68.
Joe was supposed to be in Mississippi that night, accepting his $30,000 Truman Scholarship, a national honor awarded to college juniors who plan public service careers.
Instead, he was at Morton Plant Hospital in Clearwater, having one last conversation with his father.
Now, as the O'Sheas attend school together for the first time in years, Joe is stepping into his most difficult role yet: 21-year-old patriarch of a grieving family.
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Among a brood of overachievers, Joe O'Shea stands out.
Jesse, 18, is a freshman premed student who arrived on campus last month with 51 college credits. Mykal is a third-year nursing student with a 4.0 grade point average. Robert, 23, is a second-year law student who just transferred from Florida Coastal Law in Jacksonville, where he was among the top 15 percent of students.
"But Joe's just different, he is."
Joe looks like a candidate for the HDTV age. Close-up handsome and lean, he has sea-blue eyes and an easy smile of perfectly straight white teeth.
Joe is a leader in FSU's Pi Kappa Alpha fraternity, the same Pike chapter that counts Gov. Charlie Crist as an alumnus.
But he's also a self-described social entrepreneur who helped establish a free dental care program in Tallahassee. He also had worked with volunteers to raise money to turn a flooded home in New Orleans' Lower 9th Ward into a free clinic.
A senior honors student, he keeps a 4.0 GPA while double majoring in philosophy and social science.
He is a registered Democrat who speaks passionately about things like the "innate compassion" of people and government's obligation to help the less fortunate.
He already has the Truman Scholarship. Now he's applying for the Rhodes. USA Today in February named Joe one of the nation's 20 top students.
"It's like playing checkers with Joe, because he's always four or five moves ahead of most students," says FSU president T.K. Wetherell, a former Florida House speaker. "Sometimes he wants to fight a battle that can't be won, but he'll stay true to his cause to the end."
During a meeting of student body presidents last Tuesday at the Governor's Mansion in Tallahassee, Joe deftly chatted up the governor, moving from talk of FSU's football defeat to the need for more student financial aid and better health care for Floridians.
"He's a very impressive young man," Crist said later. "He's a leader among leaders, I don't think there's any doubt about that."
Ask Joe where he wants to be in 10 years, and he pauses.
"I'll be in politics somehow, for sure." He flashes that smile.
"Saving the world, you know? I want to change the way people live their lives."
Joe started last year, helping a little part of the world called the Lower 9th Ward.
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Hurricane Katrina devastated his girlfriend's native New Orleans in 2005, so Joe spent the following summer there, doing renovations and helping raise tens of thousands of dollars in grants and donations to open a free clinic.
Today the Lower 9th Ward Health Clinic is the only facility of its kind there. Executive director Alice Craft-Kearney says it serves more than a dozen patients a day, and she credits Joe with doing much of the tough work to make it happen.
Joe was one of her project managers. Some nights, he slept inside the hot, dark house to guard supplies and construction materials from looters.
"He didn't mind getting his hands dirty and getting sweaty. And that's what drew me to him: He really has a heart for the people," Craft-Kearney said.
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The O'Sheas are at the Loop, a popular off-campus eatery. They might as well be home in Dunedin, ribbing each other at the dinner table.
Mykal is sneaking bites of Jesse's pizza, and Robert is teasing Mykal about ordering spicy Mexican soup -- at a pizza joint. They're all teasing Joe about how big he is around town.
"Joe, you literally cannot go five minutes around here without seeing your face," Robert laughs. "I opened up my student planner and you were in there. 'A message from your student body president.'"
As much as they rib Joe, they also turn to him again and again for guidance.
What do you think of that class, Joe? Where should I park? Can I borrow your parking pass?
They didn't set out to be a family of Seminoles. Joe was initially accepted at the University of Florida, and Robert enrolled at Florida Coastal Law planning to stay there all three years.
But Joe chose FSU over UF, and Mykal followed. Then Jesse saw how much Joe liked FSU and decided to attend. So it seemed natural that Robert would join them.
Their mom knows this reunion could not come at a more important time. Now more than ever, they need each other. And Debbie O'Shea believes her second son is ready to be patriarch.
When she rewrote her will after Jim died, she gave Joe power of attorney.
"I watched Joseph as his dad was dying," she says. "And he cried, but you know, you should have seen how he had the wherewithal to give the eulogy in front of all those people.
"He'll be president some day. You watch."
Staff writer Steve Bousquet contributed to this report. Shannon Colavecchio-Van Sickler can be reached at svansickler@sptimes.com or 813 226-3403.