Former chief of staff to Mike White and Hopkins Airport director
LaVonne Sheffield, fka LaVonne Sheffield Turner McClain, died September 1.
LaVonne Marie Sheffield, former chief of staff for Cleveland Mayor Mike White and director of Hopkins International Airport, died September 1 at Beaumont Hospital Dearborn. She was 69.
Sheffield received a Ph.D at the University of Michigan, where her doctoral dissertation was on the care of of elderly in an urban environment. According to her brother, she was was semi-retired and worked as a consultant. An accomplished executive, Sheffield had leadership roles in places as varied as Detroit, Philadelphia, New Haven, and Rockford, IL, often as a top executive of public school systems.
During her tenure in Cleveland, Sheffield married Jerome L. McClain, a banker at KeyCorp. McClain died in 2000. According to deadlinedetroit.com, she later married a retired Detroit deputy police chief, Dwight Hudson, and moved to Georgia. He died two years ago.
Sheffield worked full-time most recently in Boston in the nonprofit education sector until retiring about four years ago. She then moved with her husband, Dwight Hudson, a retired Detroit Police deputy chief, to Georgia. He passed away two years ago.
Her brother said she was semi-retired and worked as a consultant.
Michael White, Cleveland's mayor from 1990 to 2002, told deadlinedetroit.com:
"As my chief of staff, Lavonne was a dedicated and consummate professional who worked long hours and provided our staff with high quality leadership on a myriad of issues that landed upon her desk. Her first and foremost goal on all matters Cleveland was to always wholly and totally represent the needs of our citizens."
A memorial is scheduled for 11 a.m. Monday Sept. 13, at Detroit's Fellowship Chapel, 7807 West Outer Drive. In lieu of flowers, the family requests that donations be made in her honor to the Detroit Association of Black Organizations Inc., either here or by sending a check to Detroit Association of Black Organizations Inc., 12048 Grand River Ave, Detroit, MI 48204.
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