After working in news for about 45 years, Tom Shine, the director of News and Public Affairs at KMUW 89.1 Wichita Public Radio, will retire in December. 

Shine first developed his interest in news media by accompanying his father to the newsroom at the Detroit Free Press in his home state of Michigan.

“He was a newspaper guy in Detroit at Michigan’s largest morning newspaper, I think, for about 45 years, same as me,” Shine said. “I grew up as a kid, 7 or 8 years old, going to the newsroom with him on Saturdays just thinking, ‘This is the greatest place ever.’” 

In 1980, Shine graduated from the University of Michigan and started looking for a position at newspapers across the country until he was offered a job at The Wichita Eagle as a night police reporter. 

“I applied all over the country — literally all over the country — and only one place said yes, and it was Wichita. So, I said, ‘I guess I’m going here,’” Shine said. “I thought I would be here for maybe three years tops and then migrate back to Detroit.” 

45 years later, Shine said he’s happy with his decision to stay in Wichita because it offered him a lot of possibilities and that “it’s a great place to live, a great place to raise a family.”

“I met my wife, and she was from Kansas, and I asked her about living in Detroit, and she said, ‘No,’ so we stayed and raised a family here,” Shine said. “I’ve had opportunities to do stuff with my career here that I don’t know that I would have gotten in Detroit, so I’m totally happier.”

Suzanne Perez, a colleague of Shine’s starting in 1990, said from the first moment she met him he’d always been a “good, decent guy who puts your humanity first above anything else.”

“He was always a supervisor and above me in the hierarchy of the newsroom, but he always seemed a colleague and friend,” Perez said. “He’s just such a kind, approachable guy, and he just shows true caring for people. Tom is always concerned with how people are feeling personally, and also with what their goals are.”

Perez told a story about the last day of her interview process at the Wichita Eagle, when Shine was assigned to pick her up from the hotel she was at and take her to breakfast. 

“I met him down in the restaurant of the hotel and he introduced himself and said, ‘I know that this whole process is exhausting and you’re probably tired of talking, so if you just want to sit here quietly and eat, that’d be fine with me,’” Perez said. “I just remember being like, ‘Oh, thank you so much’ … I just loved that about him so much.”

At the Wichita Eagle, Shine eventually worked his way up to a deputy editor position, which he held for nine years. In August 2017, Shine — along with many other staff members — was laid off. 

“I was surprised, but not shocked. We laid so many people off, and I knew eventually I’d probably get laid off, too,” Shine said. “But at the time, papers all over the country were cutting people. My challenge was I was 59, you know, with newspaper skills in a city with one newspaper.”

For the next few months, Shine interviewed for a number of different jobs in marketing, communications and education until he heard that the position for Director of News and Public Affairs at KMUW, an NPR-affiliated station in Wichita, had recently opened up. 

“Working in public radio has just been great,” Shine said. “The mission is a little different. It’s different than working for a newspaper or even a TV station.” 

Shine is the host of “The Range” on KMUW 89.1, and has been since the show started almost six years ago. He said it was a “great challenge to try and do it well” because of all the different aspects that go into a radio show.

“When we said we’re doing it (‘The Range’), my boss said, ‘Well, you should be the host.’ I said, ‘Well, I’ve got no radio experience,’” Shine said. “But the newspaper guy in charge of that says ‘You need to learn how to do that.’ That was very uncomfortable.”

Shine said he took lessons to develop his on-air voice and that it was “horribly challenging and hard”.

“But it’s a good hard when you’re kind of like, ‘Yeah, I think I could do this,’ and it was greatly rewarding,” Shine said. “‘The Range’ itself has been a good show. I think people in the community like it.”

Along with hosting “The Range,” Shine helped develop the KMUW News Lab, a collaboration with the Elliott School of Communication. The News Lab is an internship program for WSU communication students where they shadow KMUW reporters at the station and learn to write and report for broadcast news. 

“I enjoy having interns in the building. I think it’s important to try to teach and grow the next generation of journalists,” Shine said. “I also know that my internship back in 1979 was very formative for me. It really convinced me that I could do this. I think all industries — but certainly the media — have a responsibility to train the next generation of people as someone trained me.”

Perez will be taking over Shine’s position at KMUW in January. Perez said that it’s going to be “huge shoes to fill”, but Shine has been a good mentor to her. Shine said he wouldn’t be retiring if he didn’t have someone “like Suzanne ready to take over.”

“I never worked directly for him (at the Wichita Eagle) … but one of the major reasons I came here (KMUW) from the Eagle was because he was going to be my editor,” Perez said. “It’s kind of intimidating in a way, but he is preparing me as well as he can for the job change. So, I really appreciate that.”

In January 2018, Shine also started working as an adjunct professor at WSU and will continue to teach in the spring semester of 2026. 

As for his retirement, he plans mainly to spend more time with his family and volunteer in the community. Shine also said, especially for the first year of retirement, he wants to take it easy.

“I think I just need to relax, and then figure out if I want to do something else,” Shine said. “But just having the ability to do what I want to do or don’t want to do is enticing right now.”

These last few months leading up to Shine’s retirement have been very busy for him, and he said that it hasn’t really hit him yet. He said news is a very fast paced environment, so there hasn’t really been any time to stop and think about the upcoming changes. 

“News is joy,” Shine said. “I’ve loved it since I was going to the newsroom with my dad when I was a kid. I worked for my college paper, my high school paper. I love writing and reporting and finding things out, but it can be a grind when you’re chasing news cycles … That’s a lot of work and I think I’m good taking a break from that and just consuming news now and observing.”