It is with sad heart that we report the death of Bill Shover. Listen to him tell his story at https://historicalleague.org/historymakers/bill-shover/ HistoricalLeague.org/
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| Bill Shover and JohnDriggs (2005 AZ Historymaker) promoting Tastes & Treasures at book store. |
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| 2003 Historymakers Calvin Goode, Bill Shover, Jack Pfister, Esther Don Tang, Virginia Ullman with chair Ruth McLeod |
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| Del Webb, Governor Jack Williams, Bill Shover |
The Arizona Republic wrote of his many talents and accomplishments:
The Arizona Republic
Nov. 8, 2026, 5:03 a.m. MT
- Bill Shover, a community leader in Phoenix who worked for The Arizona Republic for nearly 40 years, died at age 98.
- He was instrumental in founding the Fiesta Bowl, bringing the Super Bowl to Arizona and establishing a state holiday for Martin Luther King Jr.
- Shover was known for working behind the scenes and not seeking credit for his many accomplishments.
- Colleagues and family remember him as a mentor and a force for positive change in the community.
Bill Shover, the longtime Arizona Republic executive whose community, sports and other public-service endeavors left a lasting impact on the state, has died at 98.
For nearly 40 years, he was the behind-the-scenes go-to person for the state’s largest media enterprise. He was a founder of the Fiesta Bowl and chaired Arizona’s successful effort to host the Super Bowl in 1996, also working to establish a state holiday honoring the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.
He died the afternoon of Nov. 7 from natural causes at his Scottsdale home, according to his daughter, Lisa Shover Kackley.
“I would describe Shover as one of the best friends Arizona ever had,” Richard Mallery, an attorney, civic leader and philanthropist who died earlier this year, told The Republic in 1998.
Shover never rushed to take credit for his achievements, Shover Kackley said.
"He was often kind of the silent man behind some great things that happened in this community," she said, adding he lived by the words on a plaque in his office: "There is no limit to what you can accomplish if you don't care who gets the credit."
Known as an untiring community activist with a good-natured disposition, Shover was intimately involved on the local scene from the time he transferred to Phoenix in 1962 to his retirement in 1998, and beyond.
“To the average person on the street, the name Bill Shover may not mean much,” read a Republic editorial at the time of his retirement. “But as residents look around this Valley and state, Shover's fine hand can be seen in a wealth of community projects, events, services — both public and private — and even a state law or two that collectively have improved the quality of life for us all.
“Over the years, Shover has been a tour de force, a mover and shaker who deferred to others, working quietly behind the scenes with governors, legislators, mayors, chief executive officers, bishops, rabbis, university presidents, business leaders, neighborhood groups — the list is endless and the accomplishments significant.”
Greg Burton, the Arizona Republic's executive editor, credited Shover for the paper's standing in the community.
"Bill believed the newspaper could be a force for positive change and then made it happen. His fingerprints are everywhere," Burton said. As Shover neared 90, he leapt at an invitation to speak with The Republic's summer interns, Burton said.
"While he spent much of his time in the community, he loved to hang out with journalists," Burton said. "They were part of something larger, he said, a noble profession, a great newspaper. There’s a sliver of Bill in everything The Republic stands for."
Big goals helped Bill Shover shape city, state
Shover was instrumental in founding the Fiesta Bowl and chaired Arizona’s successful effort to host the Super Bowl in 1996 — an effort that left him bedridden from exhaustion after working 80-hour weeks to pull in sponsors and coordinate events.
"He dreamed of something, and he made things happen," Shover Kackley said of her father, whose bold campaigns would often be met with skepticism.
"'Oh, It's a great effort. It'll never happen,'" Shover Kackley said she would often be told, prompting her to reply, "Just watch, Dad will bring the Super Bowl here."
He labored to preserve Camelback Mountain, lobbied for a state grand jury law and was involved in the effort to establish a state holiday honoring the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. He helped to coordinate Pope John Paul II's visit to Arizona in 1987.
“We were the power and the influence in the community, and we helped to build this town,” Shover once said, commenting on his newspaper involvement.
The successful effort to bring the Super Bowl to Arizona in 1996 came three years after the NFL denied the state the 1993 game because of its initial refusal to recognize Martin Luther King Jr. Day as a paid state holiday.
Shover, who chaired the 1993 committee, described the decision as “one of the most disappointing things to happen in my professional life.” But he and other community activists continued their efforts, building voter support for the holiday. Arizona ultimately secured both the state holiday and the Super Bowl.
"He didn't do that because we wanted a football game here. He did that because it was the right thing to do," Shover Kackley said about her father's work to help secure a day honoring King. Helping to deliver the Super Bowl and MLK Day "were really a proud moment for him."
Shover also provided key support to numerous nonprofit organizations, including United Blood Services, Junior Achievement and the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Arizona State University.
He led Phoenix’s 1976 bicentennial commission and the effort to bring the anchor of the USS Arizona to the state Capitol area.
"He was one of the finest human beings you could ever meet," said Gene D’Adamo, president and CEO of the Nina Mason Pulliam Charitable Trust, who first started working with Shover at The Republic in 1988.
"He never met a stranger, never forgot a name and never cared who got the credit. Bill was 100% dedicated to the community for decades and was a mentor to countless men and women."
''It was clear from the very beginning that he knew more about the needs and leadership of the community than anyone else,” Lattie Coor, former president of ASU, told The Republic in 1998. Coor also died earlier this year.
From paperboy in Indiana to power player in Arizona
Shover was born May 31, 1928, into an Irish Catholic family in Beech Grove, Indiana. He was the first child in his family to be born in a hospital. As a boy, he served as an altar boy and sold newspapers. He joined the U.S. Army in 1946 and later used veterans’ benefits to attend college, earning a journalism degree from Butler University in Indianapolis.
His interest in journalism was sparked by the Jimmy Stewart film “Call Northside 777,” about a reporter who helps solve a murder. Shover joined the Indianapolis Star and News in 1951, owned by publishing mogul Eugene C. Pulliam. The initial job was in marketing before he became assistant public relations director. About a decade later, he transferred to Phoenix to work for The Republic and its sister publication, The Phoenix Gazette.
Shover enjoyed a close and creative relationship with Pulliam, whom he called “the Old Man.”
One story Shover often recounted took place in 1964, when Pulliam sent him to San Francisco aboard a chartered plane to distribute copies of The Republic after Barry Goldwater’s nomination as the Republican presidential candidate. Shover personally delivered papers to Goldwater, then spent the day handing out 15,000 copies at the convention hall.
“I took one up to the NBC booth in the Cow Palace and gave one to David Brinkley, who held it up for the TV camera and said, ‘This is how Goldwater's hometown paper is handling the story,’ ” Shover recalled. It was an exhausting, but fruitful, day.
Pulliam told Shover, “Kid, you did a wonderful job. Now I'm going to send up 10,000 copies of The Gazette, and you can hand those out, too.”
Shover usually worked closely on civic initiatives with Pulliam, who died in 1975, but said it was his own decision to push for the Fiesta Bowl, which hosted its first game in 1971.
“I was never told to get out and start a football game, but I knew he would be proud of the result,” Shover said. “He gave me carte blanche.”
In 1975, Shover and attorney Mallery helped persuade their bosses to establish the Phoenix 40, a group of civic-minded community leaders. At the time, the Valley’s "big three" most influential business and civic leaders were Pulliam, Walter Bimson, head of Valley National Bank, and Frank Snell, the attorney who employed Mallery.
Writing in 2004, Shover said the group was founded at a time when Phoenix “suffered from a less-than-savory reputation. Land fraud, cronyism and apathy were dominating headlines. We needed new faces to rise, new leaders to emerge. We needed to broaden the civic-leadership base and clean up our image.”
At the group’s urging, the state Legislature approved a grand jury law that virtually stopped open-season land swindling, Shover recalled. Also, the ineffective office of Maricopa County attorney was reorganized and made more efficient, and a gasoline-transportation tax was approved, providing a boost for freeways and highways.
Shover passed on his civic spirit to his children, Shover Kackley said. She serves as a trustee for the Nina Mason Pulliam Charitable Trust.
"He treated people the way that he wanted to be treated and it didn't matter what their economic class was, what their demographic, whatever societal challenges they might have," Shover Kackley said. "Dad just approached people as people."
Shover coached more than 600 boys in baseball for nearly 20 years, with many of them remaining close to him through adulthood and into his last months of life, Shover Kackley said.
After retiring, Shover remained active in attending community functions and commenting on local people and issues. He frequently wrote letters to the editor at The Republic.
Shover and his first wife, Nancy, were married for 36 years before a 1989 divorce. Their union includes four children, six grandchildren and three great-grandchildren. He wed his second wife, Mary Jane, "Murny," in 1991. She died in 2009.
At his bedside in his final moments were his wife of 14 years, Kay Loftin Shover, all of his children and most of his grandchildren, Shover Kackley said.
Op-ed piece by Bill Shover: Nearly 75 years ago, The Arizona Republic published a creed to do good. It remains today
Jose R. Gonzalez is a reporter for The Arizona Republic and azcentral.com. Email him at jose.gonzalez@usatodayco.com, and connect with him on Bluesky at @jrgzz.bsky.social and X @jrgzztx.
Russ Wiles is a former reporter for The Arizona Republic
