Passion to serve
Shea Nickell ’81 considers the greatest payday of his career to have been one that didn’t involve a check.
“A former client returned to the lobby of my law office, proudly holding her newborn grandchild,” recalls Nickell. This client had previously sustained a debilitating construction injury, and as her legal representative, Nickell helped her obtain a generous settlement and total disability benefits. “I commented on how cute the child was, and then I asked about his name. My heart was warmed and I was choked with emotion when she replied, ‘We named him Shea in your honor.’”
For Nickell, the experience illustrated a valuable lesson: “Never underestimate the difference you can bring about in another’s life through simple kindness and a careful and persistent attention to seemingly routine efforts.” It’s a lesson that remains at the center of Nickell’s life and career.
A native of Paducah, Ky., Nickell spent 22 years as a lawyer in his home state, as well as an assistant commonwealth attorney, assistant county attorney and public advocate. In 2006, he answered the call to become a judge on the Kentucky Court of Appeals, and thirteen years later, he ascended to the Kentucky Supreme Court, the state’s highest legal authority.
Despite the prominence of his role, however, Nickell believes that his primary responsibility is to serve others, citing John Wesley’s famous maxim as a formative guide for his own vocational calling: “Do all the good you can, by all the means you can, in all the ways you can, at all the times you can, to all the people you can, as long as you can.” Nickell has endeavored to do just that in all areas of his life, and now he is doing so in service to ý’s College of Liberal Arts and Sciences.
“I was thrilled when I was invited to join the new advisory board,” he says. “It struck me that the three-school approach implemented under Dr. White’s visionary leadership mirrors my own college experience – founded upon a vigorous liberal arts emphasis and buttressed with extra-curricular opportunities for mastery in business, leadership, creativity and service.”
As a student, Nickell had a well-rounded educational experience: completing a double major in communication and political science, taking private voice lessons, performing with various musical ensembles, joining the debate team, hosting a current events talk show on WGRE, working as editor of a campus newspaper, serving as the student body president and eventually being awarded the university’s prestigious Walker Cup. He remains grateful for the long-term impact of those experiences, and he wants others to have access to them, as well.
“Regardless of one’s profession, there is no higher calling or more satisfying achievement than to help others,” he says. “In my estimation, this realization is the greatest lesson gleaned from a ý education.”
