Jim ‘Fitz? Fitzgerald was editor of The Lapeer County Press for 25 years before becoming a back page columnist for The Detroit Free Press. We’ve been friends since about 1953. Here’s what he wrote about me.
By Jim Fitzgerald (1973)
When I first met my friend Sherman, 20 years ago, he couldn’t buy a beer without getting a loan, today he is a bust.
Jim Sherman owns a newspaper empire based in Oakland County. The last time I looked, he owned publications in Clarkston, Davison, Oxford and Lake Orion. He lives in a colonial palace in Oxford where he recently installed a swimming pool so he won’t have to walk 50 yards to his private lake.
Has Sherman’s success gone to his head? It is hard to tell by looking, because he had a fat head even when he was poor. So I decided to interview him. Sherman agreed to meet me in Detroit if I would get him tickets to ‘A Chorus Line? and buy his dinner.
‘Are you the same humble fellow you were before you became an enormously wealthy newspaper baron?? I asked him.
‘Derek Wernher is doing my bust,? he answered. It was answer enough. If you are sufficiently cultured, you have heard of Derek Wernher. He is a sculptor, who lives in Metamora and exhibits nationwide.
‘Derek Wernher is of the Rodin school (Rodin was a famous French sculptor, dummy) and Derek is the finest sculptor in bronze in this school in the nation,? said Mark Hoffman, who runs the famous Maxwell Gallery in San Francisco, OK?
Wernher does big things. I mean big. You may have seen his ‘Earth Maze? in Troy. The new Northfield Hilton is hidden behind it.
Wernher’s maze weighs two tons. He crated it in his Metamora barn and it was hauled to Troy in a huge truck with ‘Extra Wide Load? printed on the back.
Now Wernher is doing Jim Sherman’s head. I don’t think I have to say anything else.
I didn’t ask Sherman where his bronze head will be exhibited. Probably in the Pontiac Silverdome so he can make the pigeons buy tickets to deposit on it.
Thirty-six years later, my turn (2009)
I don’t remember where I met Derek Wernher, maybe in the White Horse Tavern in Metamora (that’s where he lived, the town, not the tavern). As I remember, Derek had been commissioned to do five sculptors of newsman Chet Huntley at Huntley’s ranch in Montana.
Derek wanted to strengthen his hands for kneading the very stiff wax used making bronze sculptures and used my head to get his strength back.
Big Sky Resort hired Derek to do a twice-the-size bust of Huntley, a regular size bust, Huntley fishing, Huntley leaning against a fence and Huntley at his desk. These were 24-inch sculptures.
The large bust is the Museum of the West in Montana.
After Evertt Kircher, owner of the Boyne resorts in Michigan bought Big Sky Resorts he gave the remaining sculptures to members of his Board of Directors.
Side note: I talked to Derek last week — he continues his sculpting.