Seattle Owner Helps Teen-ager With Cancer

A co-owner of the Seattle Mariners flew an Indianapolis teen-ager to Seattle for cancer treatment today.

Businessman Jeff Smulyan offered a ride in his Learjet to 16-year-old Shaun O’Neal, his mother and his sister after learning Tuesday of the teen-ager’s need to travel to Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle.

O’Neal is to undergo a bone marrow transplant from his sister, Nicole, 21.

Smulyan, who owns the Indianapolis-based Emmis Broadcasting, has been traveling to Seattle frequently since he and Indianapolis developer Michael Browning became the majority owners of the American League team last summer.

“It was his idea,” Robin Rene of Emmis said about her boss’s offer. “He commutes to Seattle quite a bit since he still lives in Indianapolis and thought why not invite the O’Neals along.

“Robin called and said her boss had read about Shaun and would we be interested in a ride,” said Burma O’Neal, the boy’s mother.

The teen-ager’s condition was diagnosed as leukemia in September, 1987, and he is about to have his second marrow transplant from his sister.

The process will begin within the next 30 days and the procedure takes between four and six months, Burma O’Neal said.