Thomas Francis Shannon ’50 died on June 23, 2006, in Washington, D.C.

Born on June 11, 1927, in Lowell, MA, he prepared for college at Keith Academy in Lowell, MA, and served for a year in the U.S. Navy before studying for a year at Xavier University in Ohio. In September of 1947 he transferred to Bowdoin as a sophomore and became a member of Sigma Nu Fraternity and the Class of 1950. Following his graduation in 1950 he entered the University of Virginia Law School, from which he graduated in 1953.After two years as an associate with Lorimer and Perkins in Concord, NH, he was legislative assistant to Senator Styles Bridges of New Hampshire. He was a special counsel in 1957 to the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Campaign Fraud and then was the chief minority counsel to the U.S. Senate Committee on Appropriations before working in the Washington office of a Cleveland law firm. He and Robert Collier founded Collier & Shannon in 1963, specializing in international trade and energy law.The firm grew over the next 43 years to hundreds of lawyers and support staff and became Collier, Shannon, Rill & Scott. As a result of a merger earlier in 2006 the firm is now known as Kelley, Drye, Collier & Shannon. It was one of the first Washington law firms to develop subsidiaries offering economic and communications consulting, and it hired non-lawyer lobbyists when it was unusual for law firms to do so. He also maintained a home in Nantucket, MA, where he was a member of the Quidnet community, the Sankaty Head Golf Club, and the Siasconset Casino Association, and he served on the board of the Egan Maritime Foundation.Through his generosity and that of his wife, Helen, there are at Bowdoin the Thomas F. and Helen G. Shannon Scholarship Fund, the Thomas F. Shannon Professorship in Environmental Studies, and the Thomas F. Shannon Room in Hubbard Hall. Surviving are his wife, Helen Gonyea Shannon,
whom he married in 1950; and a sister, Margaret Shannon.