Sole survivors: Shoe shiners’ work reflected in footwear across city

Monday, May 7, 2001 | 8:57 a.m.

Shining shoes is an art.

"It's an art because of the steps you take,"said Tommy Maynard, an expert shoe shiner who spent more than 30 of his 77 years as a trumpet player. "When you are a musician, you have to learn how to play a horn in steps."

Maynard recently became operations manager for Goodfellows Shoeshine, a company that has stands in 14 Las Vegas hotel-casinos and 47 shoe-shine attendants.

"A lot of people have an attitude about the image of shining shoes,"he said. "A lot think, That's below me.' But anything you do well is not below you.

"If you're a professional and do whatever you do, you do it correctly, people appreciate that. It's not what you do, it's how you do it that's where the art comes in."

Maynard had been an attendant with Goodfellows Shoeshine for eight years before his promotion. Before that, he worked for Circuit City for almost 10 years as a personnel trainer. As a musician, he traveled with Marvin Gaye, and had his own band in Los Angeles.

Maynard was 10 years old when he first worked as a professional shoe-shine attendant.

"I worked in a hat shop in Wichita, Kan.," Maynard said. "I put away 50 bucks a day shining shoes."

He shined shoes for a couple of years before becoming a professional musician at age 15. His life has come full circle: Maynard is back in the shoe-shining business.

A proper shine, Maynard said, begins with cleaning the shoe.

"When you paint a house, you don't just put paint on it. You have to have a primer. The same with shoes," he said.

"Things have changed," he continued. "For example, we used to use water to spit-shine shoes. But water causes leather to crack, eventually. Now they have manufactured products to clean the leather with."

Technology also has changed.

"You see these people with hair dryers blowing on the shoe?" he said. "A woman goes to the beauty shop and the hairdresser uses a hair dryer to open the hair shafts up. In shoes, the dryer opens the pores of the leather."

Opening the pores, he said, allows the polish to get into the shoe for a better, longer-lasting shine.

"A good shine should last you 30 days or longer," he said. "And you can't give a home shine like a professional. At home, you don't have the ability to put polish into the leather."

Not only has technology changed, but so has the gender of those who shine shoes. Once almost strictly a male profession, a lot of women now shine shoes.

Jessica "Sunshine" Ellis, 25, quit the exotic-dance business 18 months ago to shine shoes.

She first worked for Gene's Shoe Shines, a company that leases space at several car washes around town. A person can get his or her shoes and car shined at the same location.

Recently Ellis went to work for Goodfellows at a new location at Harrah's, where the company is expanding its services.

"I was making $100 a day at the car wash," she said. "I'm not a money-hungry person. I could live on $100 a day."

The Dallas native has no desire to go back to exotic dancing. "I don't miss it," she said.

However, Ellis said dancing taught her lessons she applies to the shoe-shine business -- skills such as communicating with strangers and accepting rejection gracefully.

Shining star

While many things have changed about the shoe-shine business, one of the most dramatic is the business itself.

Although shoe-shine attendants are still independent contractors, these days most work at stands that are leased from hotels, casinos and other businesses by one of several concessionaires, such as Gene's.

Goodfellows is one of the largest shoe-shine companies in town. It was founded in 1991 by Shelly Bonner-Carson, who was working in marketing at the Riviera when the idea struck her to organize the shoe-shine industry.

"I'm a native of Las Vegas and I've worked in the resort industry since I was old enough to work," she said. "I always had my shoes (shined), but I had to send them into the men's restroom.

"About 15 years ago, at the start of the (Las Vegas building) boom, I realized there was a need for a specialized service, i.e., shoe shines. It wasn't being done the way I had in my mind that it could be done ... I was getting tired of 'you-hooing' into men's rooms to get the attention of a shoe-shine attendant."

Her first stand was at Circus Circus, and she has added one or two locations a year since then.

"I saw a niche that wasn't being filled and I filled it," she said.

When her company was formed, Carson said the industry was a poor mixture of attendants, some of whom were hotel employees who cleaned restrooms and shined shoes.

"Basically, a few different individuals had set up chairs at different hotels," Carson said. "No one had ever done it like us. We organized it and turned it into a business. We run a real professional, first-class operation that offers hotels beautiful shoe-shine concessions that we actually build."

Goodfellows' shoe-shine attendants can be found at trade shows and conventions, as well as at the fixed locations.

"We have mobile shoe-shine attendants for exhibitors who call us as a way to attract people to their booth," Carson said. "The exhibitor hires us by the day and offers complementary shoe shines. This gets people sitting down and allows the marketing people to get a captive audience. We're looking at expanding in convention markets across the Southwest."

The company is also developing its own line of polish.

"We are working with some chemists in L.A. right now to come up with the perfect recipe," Carson said.

The latest Goodfellows development is a concession called Feet Retreat. The first one opened recently at Harrah's.

Feet Retreat, in addition to being a shoe-shine stand, sells a variety of products related to shoes and feet -- insoles, blister packs, foot massagers, shoe creams, laces and other items.

"It offers everything related to aching and tired feet," Carson said. "People come to Las Vegas and have no idea how huge the hotels are. They will wear a brand new pair of shoes, and their feet start killing them."

Eventually, Carson said, all of her shoe shine stands will include a Feet Retreat concession.

Airport business

One of the busiest locations for shoe-shine attendants is McCarran International Airport.

Deborah Oliver, 42, is an independent contractor with International Shoe Shine, one of several shoe-shine concessionaires at the airport.

"I lease the stand here three days a week," said Oliver, who also works as a newspaper carrier.

She's been shining shoes at different locations for about 10 years.

"I used to shine shoes at car washes," she said. "(In) the time it takes to wash a car, your shoes can be shined. I just told the customers not to be upset if their shoes shined better than their car."

Tom Bronner, 57, has worked at the airport for 17 years, since quitting the skycap business. He leases space from Herman Jones, another concessionaire.

Bronner routinely shines the shoes of famous people.

"Sinbad, Charles Barkley, Michael Jordan, Mike Tyson, Lennox Lewis," he said, rattling off several names. "Michael Jordan is one of the highest tippers ever. But Charles Barkley, he stiffed me for $10, but he swore when he comes back he's going to pay me."

Late Thursday and Friday nights are the best times to look for stars around shoe-shine stands, he said. "They like the late flights. There's not so much traffic."

The busiest time of the year for Bronner is the winter, when there are several large conventions, such as Comdex, held in Las Vegas. He said, "A lot of businessmen dress to impress" at the conventions, and that includes having their shoes shined.

"You can make $100 a day in the busy season, but then from May to September you got to hold on to what you've got, 'cause you really suffer," he said.

Those are the hot months, when most of the people passing through the airport are wearing sneakers and sandals, the enemies of professional shoe shiners everywhere.

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