On Yvette Shields, and the Hall of Fame

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On September 13, luminaries from across the world of municipal finance will gather in Chicago at the close of The Bond Buyer's Infrastructure event to celebrate the incoming class of Rising Stars and induct the second annual class into our Hall of Fame. 

On that night in Chicago, Yvette Shields, our friend and colleague, will be among those posthumously inducted into the Hall of Fame's newly created Legacy Wing, a group of honorees who passed on prior to receiving the distinction.

If you knew Yvette, her receipt of this honor likely requires no explanation. Whether or not you had the pleasure, there are a few things I'd like everyone reading this to know about how and why we came to this decision, particularly so soon after her tragic passing.

I first want to make it clear that this is not a decision we came to lightly, impulsively, or emotionally. Our intention with this Hall of Fame has been to celebrate those individuals who, over the course of their life's work, have made an indelible impact on the municipal finance community. When we set that criteria, we did so intending to honor the practitioners of muni finance themselves, not necessarily fellow journalists covering the industry. But that notion began to change after Yvette's passing. 

The change in sentiment was driven most critically by the genuine outpouring of condolences and kind words from across the industry sent to both me personally and to many of my colleagues, either directly or through social media. We have received  shared memories, funny anecdotes, stories of her kindness and wit — all of the ways Yvette impacted many lives and careers through her decades-long tenure covering Chicago, the state of Illinois, and beats throughout the Midwest municipal market for The Bond Buyer. 

These ran the gamut from colleagues to former colleagues to other journalists to longtime readers to dozens and dozens of people from all over the municipal market, but especially the close-knit Chicago muni community. The message I received, overwhelmingly, from the latter was that Yvette was not just a respected voice that covered their market, but she was also, without question, woven into the very fabric of that community. 

For the Chicago-area muni market,  for literally a quarter-century, Yvette Shields has been required daily reading, as respected by those she wrote about as she was by those who both read her and worked with her. 

She was a familiar presence at panel events and industry outings, a friendly voice on the phone or on a podcast, a source of often snarky social media posts. And in the days and weeks that followed Yvette's passing, it was made abundantly clear just how much not just that community, but the muni community at large, felt this loss and wanted the industry to honor her. 

In parallel, we were having our own discussions among the Hall of Fame selection committee. We agreed that, though it's not how we originally envisioned this, Yvette embodied all the qualities we look for in a Hall of Famer, despite writing about the business rather than practicing in it. 

Yvette took a beat reporting job in 1997 at a trade publication covering what most would deem an esoteric, nuanced corner of the financial markets. She embraced it. Her work on that beat over the ensuing years  gave it a level of local mainstream notoriety that not only saw each of the last two mayors of Chicago join the ranks of the many posting on social media about her shortly after the news broke, but also saw her honored with a proclamation on the floor of the Illinois Senate.

Throughout her extensive body of work and mastery of her beat, Yvette helped to inform and educate, not just her readers but also her fellow reporters. She was generous with her knowledge, sharing it with local reporters not versed in municipal finance, to help them better inform their own readers. That generosity, of course, extended  to our own staff at The Bond Buyer, in which she helped young reporters contextualize issues in their own beats by understanding how she covered hers.

Nearly two decades ago, I was one of those young Bond Buyer reporters. When I arrived here, fresh out of journalism school, Yvette was already a rock star. As I struggled to find my way covering the New England states, I wondered how I'd ever write the kind of front-page pieces she pumped out daily for the Midwest region. 

I really got to know Yvette a year or so later when I shifted to the Markets team to write the daily story wrapping up the notable happenings in the day's municipal primary and secondary markets. Every time an issuer from her beat was set to come to market with a big pricing, she was one of the first calls I'd get that day. She'd spend time on the phone with me — as much as I needed — to give me context on how the pricing was expected to go, to connect me with sources, or simply answer my questions so I could do a better interview with my own sources. 

But this wasn't out of the ordinary for Yvette. Whether she was explaining something to a cub reporter, or interviewing a public official or industry source on the record, or just chatting on background in search of her next story, Yvette had this ease of conversation where she could get even the most guarded person to settle into a more candid discussion. 

It was this quality, I think, that helped her not only become such a great reporter, but such a beloved colleague/friend/confidante. Yvette conversated. She asked you questions, but you understood that she was invested in your answers and genuinely interested in your story. It's why sources trusted her, even though they knew she'd pull some quotes out of them they'd maybe not intended to share, or report on things they'd maybe prefer not be reported. They knew, ultimately, they could trust Yvette to be fair and accurate, and she took that responsibility very seriously.

I've always appreciated those long-ago conversations with Yvette. The help she gave me at that time was invaluable to my growth as a reporter, and it wasn't something she had any obligation to do, nor something that she saw as anything special. I think her instinct was simply to always offer help if she could. 

I was one of many she helped in this way, without a second thought. Yvette, though, was one of one, a sentiment shared by us in the Hall of Fame selection committee. We agreed that not only would Yvette be a deserving member of The Bond Buyer's Hall of Fame of municipal finance, but she should be inducted into the Legacy Wing as part of this class in Chicago, with many of those who held her in the highest regard in attendance.  

Yvette Shields leaves behind a legacy, both here at The Bond Buyer and throughout the Midwest muni market, that I don't know if she totally grasped herself. She had almost unbelievable humility for someone so talented and so good at what they did; Yvette was one of those people who had a hard time letting you give them their flowers, so to speak. 

While it's heartbreaking that we can no longer give them to her physically, I'm honored to be able to extend her this posthumous honor, on behalf of The Bond Buyer, to ensure that her life, career, and legacy are properly celebrated and remembered for many years to come.

The family has set up the Yvette Shields Memorial Fund to primarily support the education of her 16-year-old son Wesley. The fund can be accessed through this link.