Transcript of interview with Thalia Dondero by Susan Scott, March 18, 1978

UNLV University Libraries Thalia Dondero i An Interview with Thalia Dondero An Oral History Conducted by Susan Scott Ralph Roske Oral History Project on Early Las Vegas Special Collections and Archives Oral History Research Center University Libraries University of Nevada, Las Vegas UNLV University Libraries Thalia Dondero ii © Ralph Roske Oral History Project on Early Las Vegas University of Nevada, Las Vegas, 2017 UNLV University Libraries Thalia Dondero iii The Oral History Research Center (OHRC) was formally established by the Board of Regents of the University of Nevada System in September 2003 as an entity of the UNLV University Libraries’ Special Collections Division. The OHRC conducts oral interviews with individuals who are selected for their ability to provide first-hand observations on a variety of historical topics in Las Vegas and Southern Nevada. The OHRC is also home to legacy oral history interviews conducted prior to its establishment including many conducted by UNLV History Professor Ralph Roske and his students. This legacy interview transcript received minimal editing, such as the elimination of fragments, false starts, and repetitions in order to enhance the reader's understanding of the material. All measures have been taken to preserve the style and language of the narrator. The interviewee/narrator was not involved in the editing process. UNLV University Libraries Thalia Dondero iv Abstract On March 18, 1978, Susan Scott interviewed Thalia Dondero (born 1921 in Greeley, Colorado) about her experiences in Nevada and more specifically about her work as a Clark County Commissioner. Dondero first speaks about her background and the circumstances which led her to move to Las Vegas. She also talks about her children, her work with the Parent-Teacher Association, and her service with the Nevada State Park Commission. She also mentions some of her lobbying work for the development of state parks, including a project by National Geographic in which she visited multiple parks, and she later describes the development of the Las Vegas Strip. At the end of the interview, Dondero talks about her involvement in various organizations, her consideration for running for governor, and some of the topics she handles as a commissioner for the county. UNLV University Libraries Thalia Dondero 1 Ms. Thalia Dondero. The date is March 18th, 1978 at 10:10 a.m. The place, 808 Bonita Avenue, Las Vegas, Nevada. The interviewer is Susan Scott, 4441 South Escondido, Las Vegas, Nevada. The project is Local History Project, Oral Interview: The Life of a Las Vegas County Commissioner, Clark County. Okay, what’s your place of birth? Greeley, Colorado. And when were you born? January the 23rd, 1921. Why did you come out to Las Vegas? I came to Las Vegas in 1945, originally in 1942, and then I went back home, and then I came back in 1945, and I came to work in Las Vegas at Henderson, actually, the facilities that were a war effort type of facility at that time. We were doing all of the war surplus items, and we were itemizing (unintelligible). Were you working at, like, a Navy base? No, just a secretary. And you came out for the job then? Yes. And then how come you decided to stay, did you like—? Well, I liked Las Vegas, and I had made new friends in Las Vegas, and I wanted to stay here. How many people are in your family? In my family or my husband’s and my family? Oh, do you have any children? Oh, my own family, I am one of four, but in our family, is my husband and my family, we have five children. UNLV University Libraries Thalia Dondero 2 And did the rest of your family stay in Colorado? No, my mother and my sisters live in California in Bakersfield. All right, family history? Mm-hmm. I would say my grandparents went across the plains from Pennsylvania to Kansas (unintelligible), and they settled in central Kansas where they still live, and they’re wheat farmers. And I guess that my ethnic ancestry is, my mother’s family was Pennsylvania Dutch, and my father was Irish. My education, I went to school in Greeley, Colorado in the Colorado State Teacher’s College in a laboratory school at the college, and then we moved to California where I had my education and my high school education, and also I attended the Junior Bakersfield (unintelligible). And places of residence and travel, well, that’s very limited. I’m a westerner, and very proud of it. I hadn’t done much travelling until my children had been raised, and my occupational history in Las Vegas has been that I have worked as a Girl Scouts Executive Director for ten years, from the period of 1961 to 1971, and that’s kind of that history, excepting, as I said, I raised my family, been very active in raising—of course, you have to be with five children. Mm-hmm. Awards and honors received, well, (unintelligible). Did you want to go back, again, to your family history so that you can—? Yes, I thought perhaps it would be better to put additional family history at this time as to, you know, my marriage and our own children and maybe that would be helpful, too, because they are all native Nevadans. And I did get married in 1936 to Harvey Dondero, and as I said, we have five children. And we moved, briefly, to Carson City where Mr. Dondero was employed by the U. S. Department of Education, and then one child was born up there. And then we came back UNLV University Libraries Thalia Dondero 3 down to Las Vegas and stayed down here where he was at Las Vegas High School as a teacher and then went into administrative work with the Clark County School District. But anyway, our family has—I’m very proud of my own children, and I think that they have done well in their community and with their lives. We have Judy; she has two children and is busy raising those, but she also does teach part time, or helps with a teaching program for children with learning disabilities. And Judy went to school here in Las Vegas High School and then to UNLV, which was known by another name at that time. What was that? It was Nevada Southern University, and it started in a very small way, so I’m very proud of this school right now. When did they change it to Nevada, UNLV? You know, I can’t tell you the year that that was changed, but it hasn’t been changed too long. But we did change the name to University of Nevada, Las Vegas. But anyway, the next boy in the family went to school at Las Vegas High School and went to UNLV and into the University of Reno, and he’s now with the U.S. Forest Service as a ranger, and his specialty is recreation; he’s a recreation specialist right now for Mt. Charleston area. I have another boy that graduated from Las Vegas High School; we, you know, supplied them with plenty of kids—(Laughs)—and he went to Stanford and to the University of Washington in Seattle, but he got his degree, his masters, in business from the University of Washington. But his graduate degree at Stanford in business, too, but he was also a swimmer for Stanford, and also swam in their water polo team. And while he was at the University of Washington getting his master’s, he taught economics and also was their head coach for the Washington Huskies water polo team. And he is now a vice president of Wedgwood China in Secaucus, New Jersey. And then the next daughter graduated UNLV University Libraries Thalia Dondero 4 from Las Vegas High School, and also graduated from UNLV, and she was a cheerleader at UNLV and very active in the student affairs, but she is now teaching, and she teaches kindergarten at the Harvey Dondero School. Oh, that’s named after your husband. Yes. And then she’s expecting her first baby now. And then the next boy graduated from Las Vegas High School, but he is not down in Mesa, and he plays baseball and he’s also been scouted and offered, by the different baseball teams—the St. Louis Cardinals and the Pittsburgh Pirates—as a pitcher. So, I hope that his future will be good, too. But anyway, I feel that all my children have turned out well because a lot of people wonder how it is to raise children in Las Vegas, but I say it’s no different than any other place, but you have to raise your children; you can’t just turn ‘em out and hope they turn out alright. So I think that that kind of catches up on the family history with present family history, and yes, there was a school named after Mr. Dondero, which is a nice honor. But he has been with the Las Vegas, or the Clark County School District since 1939, which is a long time. But that has taken time, of course, to be in the service and everything else. But anyway, he is a native of Nevada; he was born in Laughlin, Nevada, so I think that our roots are in Nevada pretty solidly. But we’ve been active in many organizations, and primarily I worked very hard in the PTA organization, because having so many children, that seemed to be a good thing to do so that you would have a good rapport with teachers and people who are around your own children. And I did assume a lot of offices in the PTA, and I also served as the state PTA president. And as I said, in all the other offices leading up to that, I guess you might say that I was very active in that, very active in Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts, as I said, and then I went into the Girl Scouts movement as a professional. But in doing so, you know, you have to have a lot of additional education and constantly be educated in yourself and taking all of UNLV University Libraries Thalia Dondero 5 the classes and all of the seminars that you can to take care of your own education as much as possible. Where I never had a degree from the university, I think that one of these days, I’ll go back and get that. Do you have an idea of what you’d like to go back and get it in, or? Well, I would like to go back and get it in business education. I think that that would be very helpful at this time. However, I am an artist and do etchings and watercolors, and have taken honors for those and I’ve done some professional work. (Unintelligible) Those two over there, but some of them as I said, I have provided covers for magazines. Oh, really? Yes, so I feel like that’s an honor, too, to be able to have your work selected to be on a magazine cover. But anyway, those are the kind of things that I think have made life interesting in Nevada and Las Vegas, as I said, besides running for office. But during the time that our family was growing up, we were selected to be a family of the year. Oh, how nice. And also, I was selected to represent Nevada at (unintelligible) Better Living Institute in Chicago. I feel like those are honors to our family, and I believe in a good family life, so that’s one thing that’s important. But I wanted to give you some of that background so that we could catch up on some of the other things that I have been involved in, but I think that one thing we should state right now, that you can’t have a lot of honors unless you have a good family life, too. And I think that our children have been achievers; our son had a lot of good swimming records while he was growing up, and we worked on a lot of good projects, such as Fantasy Park; UNLV University Libraries Thalia Dondero 6 I was the first chairman for the Fantasy Park. I don’t know whether you’ve been down to Fantasy Park. I’m not familiar with that. Well, we did a lot of these very unique items, as you can see—well, you can’t see on the tape—but this is a big dragon that is, there’s one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine people standing around, so you can see how large it is. And that was the first item we put down at Fantasy Park, and we had someone come and build those, and we have other items down there that are very unique. I have served on the Nevada State Park Commission, which I’m very proud of, and served there for six years. What exactly does the Nevada State Park Commission do? Well, it’s an advisory group to select sites for parks throughout the state of Nevada, and we go around to the different park sites to see how they’re coming along and to evaluate and also recommend to the legislature the budgets that it will take to maintain those parks throughout the state of Nevada. And I think we can be very proud of all of the new parks during my tenure that we’ve set aside as park sites because, with such a growing United States, it’s kinda hard to identify those park sites and get them set aside early before the whole state is developed, is really unique. And we have selected sites that were different, and probably beautiful sites—some of them, I think, are desert sites, some are water sites, and some are just whittled sites—Valley of Fire is a state park site, and Lake Tahoe, so you can see the extremes in those two sites. But I think that that was one of the most enjoyable jobs that I did for my state, was to be on the state park systems. Did you get to travel a lot? Yes, inside Nevada. UNLV University Libraries Thalia Dondero 7 So you must know pretty much what everything (unintelligible)—? In fact, from the travelling around the state on the state park board, I did become quite familiar with those, and so from that, I was contacted by the National Geographic and sat down with my sites of the state and went through them with the National Geographic. And from that, they developed a book called the Desert—I should remember the name of that—the Great American Deserts. And I took them on various tours around the state of Nevada, and I said I was really very proud of that, because all of the sites that we visited were in the book. And I did get a credit in the back of the book, an acknowledgement in the acknowledgments, so I felt very proud of that. And as I said, we had a great time doing that and did even more for them—in fact, that was one of the pictures that I helped them set up for a motorcycle race from the Mojave Desert. How many people were in there? I don’t—well, it was just an enormous thing. I have the original photograph of this picture. But we had such a great time in Nevada and (unintelligible) and talking to the different people. But, as I said, there are a lot of unique places in Nevada that are very interesting, and like I said they’re so interesting the National Geographic did a (unintelligible). And we went to Zion wilder with them on a trip and down the Desolation Canyon, which was (unintelligible) down the Green River. So, it’s been an excitement, as I said, and I really enjoyed that part of my life, and it’s because I have met a lot of wonderful people and learned a lot of the history of the state of Nevada through that particular advisory group. I’ve also served on other boards, statewide boards, and I guess I worked with the crippled children society and the mental health group that I thought was a great education to myself to learn about some of the disabilities some people have to work with. And at the beginning, when those organizations were just being formed, there was very little being done in the state of Nevada for people with different disabilities. The fact that UNLV University Libraries Thalia Dondero 8 we were able to set up some schooling and some sites for those people to be taken care of, I think, has been a great advantage to the state of Nevada, especially for crippled children and the variety school, which would help (unintelligible) for children who had physical disabilities. And also did a lot of work with children with mental disabilities, and also the blind children, and the blind people, because we did go over when I was a member of the service league and served as their president—served (unintelligible) I still am a member of Junior League, they later changed their name to and became a member of the Junior Leagues of the United States, and it’s a very good organization. We did a lot of great things for Southern Nevada while working with that organization. As I said, that was one of the projects with the Fantasy Park, and also, as I said, with the blind people, we taught them surroundings and how to (unintelligible) and just work with them generally. And now they have a blind center and are able to take care more or less of themselves and sell some of their own (unintelligible), but they have an organization which has been set up to help themselves, too, so primarily it was an organization to meet some of the unmet needs in the community. Believe me, there were many (unintelligible) because there were less than 10,000 in Las Vegas, and now there’s close to 400,000. So you can see that it was a matter of growing up with the community and learning all of that. There’s a lot of interesting things that happened; well, as you well might now, there wasn’t much on the Strip or Downtown either, because when I first came here, Seventh Street was not paved. It was still a dirt road. As I said, I think the Frontier—it was called the Last Frontier—and the El Rancho, and a few other places out on the Strip. So, the Strip was already there? Well, the Strip was there, just very—as I said, just the Last Frontier and where the Sahara Hotel is now was the Club Bingo, and then the El Rancho, and Gracie Hayes had the Red Rooster out UNLV University Libraries Thalia Dondero 9 on the Strip, but there were very few places out there, few motels, and that’s about it. And then Downtown, of course, there were the Downtown places that were pretty much there, but most of the shopping was done on Fremont Street. That was the shopping center, and since that time, of course, the stores have moved out—Ronzone’s and Sears was Downtown—but those have all gone. Penney’s did stay Downtown, but it was not very much, but when you walked Downtown, you could see your friends, too. So when they built the Strip up, did that attract a lot of people to come out here, or? Well, I think, of course, the publicity that was generated by the hotels themselves to attract people to Las Vegas has been done over the years, as I said, primarily by those hotels and their own publicity, the chamber of commerce, and some of the organizations that have really promoted Las Vegas nationwide really built the town. And as it attracted other hotels and chains of big hotels, and I guess there are some landmark decisions in the state legislature that changed the Strip, too, which was the allowing of corporations to be licensed. Other than that, they were individuals or groups of individuals that were licensed for liquor and gaming in Nevada. But when they allowed corporations and that, big corporations could come in and build big hotels. So that rather changed the face of things, but that was done while Paul Laxalt was in as governor. But I think that we have seen, or I have seen, a lot of governors and personal friends of the governors as they have gone in and out of office, which I think is really unique in Nevada, the fact that we’re on a first name basis with the governors and (unintelligible) Sawyer and Laxalt and O’Callaghan, and, you know, they’re personal friends. So I think that that’s one thing that’s unique about Nevada—in fact, we were sitting around talking about it yesterday, the St. Paddy’s Day affair that, isn’t it great that you can sit down next to a judge and a commissioner and whatever else that’s there in the room and just chat away, and it is really bright. And the fact that UNLV University Libraries Thalia Dondero 10 I’m on a first name basis with our legislators in the state and our U.S. senators and congressmen and have been with those that have been in the U.S. Congress or congressional delegation for the last twenty-five years. So, it really has been nice to, as I said, be involved in the state as far as politics, and I’ve always been interested in politics because I think it’s exciting, and I worked very hard at becoming involved, and I found frustrated that I did lobby at the legislative sessions and lobbied for different things locally that I believed in. What did you lobby for? Well, of course, I lobbied for additional state parks, which was a pretty hard lobby. I lobbied for additional mental health monies. I lobbied for children in educational programs that I believed in for additional funds to do different things for education through my work with the PTA and better reading programs in schools. And as I said, additional monies for teachers—I felt the teachers were underpaid, and I think that those are the kinds of things that you believe in, you don’t always get everything you want, but at least you try. And when I decided that I would really become involved, I had lobbied with the chamber of commerce for different bills and we (unintelligible) on water bills, (unintelligible) bills—I’m trying to think what other bill (unintelligible), but those are the main, important bills that I lobbied on, and then, as I said, I decided to get involved. I ran for the state legislature one time and was defeated, and then the next time I ran, I ran for county commissioner, which I was elected to be in office. And I am not campaigning again, so— Did you run again for county commissioner? Yes, yes. You enjoy it, then, I take it? Yes, I do, because I can see that we can really accomplish something locally. UNLV University Libraries Thalia Dondero 11 When you say you lobbied for something, what do you do, you just talk to senators or congressmen? Assemblymen? Yes, I, when you lobby or give testimony, there’s one thing that I have learned that you have to really have your facts together and your background work done. That means that you have to do a lot of research and be sure that you’re going to be able to give testimony that’s meaningful and that, when they question you, you can answer questions. So it really is not—as I said, you have to be able to prove your point. Mm-hmm. [Recording cuts out, tape ends] For the purpose of lobbying (unintelligible) understand? Oh, yes, you do. You would, I guess, you follow the meetings and the hearings that are held in Carson City. Sometimes they’re held in Southern Nevada, and sometimes they’re held in Carson City, but primarily Carson City, our legislature only meets every two years. And you make arrangements to be on the agenda, and then you go and testify. You have to stay there, of course, fly to Reno and then drive to Carson City in order to be able to testify, but you can or you can lobby through calling your legislator or congressional delegate, or you can write them letters—it’s all the same, all lobbying. So those are some of the methods of lobbying (unintelligible) every time you can find them in the halls sometimes, or at home when they’re here during the weekends. But there are a lot of different ways to lobby, ‘cause I said, if you can bend their ear for a few moments in the hall, going between meetings, or as I said after hours, or anytime that you can find one of them, call them on the phone or anything, you have something that you feel strongly about, you can also write to them. I think talking to them personally, of course, (unintelligible). It takes a combination of many people. One thing that they do understand, and UNLV University Libraries Thalia Dondero 12 that’s a lot of people. So those are the kind of things that I’m interested in. It’s good to be a part of the governor. Now, what else did you want to know? Okay— (Unintelligible) all those honors and things, and as I said, I don’t do things for honors. I believe in just—well, I guess I’ve been honored by the Girl Scouts and have their highest award, and also in the PTA, their life member award. Might as well turn it off while I get this (unintelligible). Okay. Okay, some of the old buildings that I remember around the town when I first came here—and you have that date earlier—is down at the old Mormon Fort, down by the Elks Club and the buildings that we have around there that we, every year during the Helldorado Parade, which, you know, since I’ve been here, I’ve gone to it, and one of the great things was that (unintelligible) bones were on display in this little kind of a shack down by the Mormon Fort. Now, (unintelligible), is that? That’s an Indian. Okay. And I don’t ever remember what happened to those, but they were down there for years and years and years. But I remember the only time we ever saw them was at Helldorado Time, or that we went down into that area of town. One of the other old ranches that we used to go out and visit is out of town, and we did go out to some social events at a couple of the old ranches, and one was out at Tule Springs, and the other one was over in the North Las Vegas area—I’m trying to think of the names of those two old ranches that we went to that, they were beautiful old homes, and one was more or less of a country club, and I guess it must have been close to the old UNLV University Libraries Thalia Dondero 13 municipal golf course in that area there. But we would have some—and there’s another old ranch that we visited that’s another golf course out in the Craig Road area, and those were some old residences that were frequented by the local residents, as well as a place called the Green Shack; it still is a popular eating place out on Boulder Highway. But some of those places, the locals would go and, you know, participate and see your friends and have fun, are still there. And out on the highway, I remember in particular one of the places that we did get down, and, was a place called Four Mile, and of course there was kind of a tent village out that the people in the Henderson area lived in before the BMI plants were able to provide housing for people that lived in Henderson. And those are the things that I think are more recent, probably in my adult lifetime, that have gone by the wayside, but there were some pretty. So people lived in tents? Yes, there was a tent city outside of the Henderson area for the people that worked in the BMI plant. So, that, as I said—well, there were a lot of tent villages. I think there were some when they first started the Boulder Dam project, there was a tent area, too, and the government, of course, finally built some housing. But when people first came here to live, there was absolutely no housing. In fact, when we first came here, there was very limited housing, and we had to wait for a house before we could find one. We lived, originally, out in the North Las Vegas area, in a little tiny place until we could find a house to live in, because there just was not any place in town—they had not built very many houses. So, as I said, they had the Huntridge area was built up, but everybody that had a house had it built for them. Did you have this house built for you? Yes, this one was built for us. So, we’ve only lived a couple places in town. We lived in a place called the Mayfair District, and those houses were built in the very early 1940s, so we were able UNLV University Libraries Thalia Dondero 14 to have one of those, and as our family grew, we had a bigger house. But those are the kind of things that, you know, people don’t realize, that it’s just that recent that we’ve been able to have a house to live in. (Unintelligible) [Recording cuts out] I think what we talk about in membership and activity in other organizations, and what I feel is important—we did discuss the PTA and the Girl Scouts and the Boy Scouts and organizations related to the children’s activities and of the other organizations, and I feel are important. And of course I’ve just been asked to be an honorary member in a teacher’s organization, which I think is a real key point in my life since I am not a teacher, but I have taken time to speak to the organizations in the community as to what, these are the service organizations, and what I think is happening in the government and what is important for them to know about the government as it’s going along at this point. The other organization, as I indicated I belonged to, the Junior League of Las Vegas, that I consider very important—home of the good shepherd—but that’s related to young girls and the help that they can give to the young girls. Some of the organizations that I have tried to work in, I believe in, and I believe in what they’re doing as an organization. I’m a member of the United Way, which is an organization that combines all of the different organizations that usually collect money for their survival—that’s the Girl Scouts, Boy Scouts, and the Red Cross and these kind of organizations—that need money, and they combine everything to have one big fundraising event during the year. And I participate in that because I believe in that. Some of the key points in my life, of course, is having a good family and also the fact that I was able to seek public office and win. I was able to become the chairman of the county commission, and that was the first time that a woman—well, it was the first time that a UNLV University Libraries Thalia Dondero 15 woman has ever been on the commission, let alone being chairman of the organization. And I feel that it’s a very important commission, because it also is the water district, sanitation district, and hospital board of trustees—the liquor and gaming board, the airport authority, as well as the general county business. So it is very important it has probably more of the population involved in giving services to than the City of Las Vegas right now, because the total population of the city is about, maybe, 75,000 people. The rest of the population is all in the outlying area, which is under the jurisdiction of the county commission. And we give a lot of urban services, which is fire and police, streets and highways—I feel like it’s a very important job that we’re doing. And since we do have the courts and juvenile services and half of the police commission and those kinds of jobs to do, I think it’s very important that we’re part of the community. And as far as other items of importance in my life, I thought it was very important that somebody at least ask me if I was gonna run for governor. I thought that was important. I said I might one of these days. Would you really run for governor? Yes, or the congressional seat. I think it would be important if what I have learned as a county commissioner has been very important, as I just described the scope of the job, and I feel like it’s an important job. And it’s prepared me for a lot of political activity that I didn’t have any idea even existed before, and it’s been a very educational and challenging job to do, and I think we’ve done a tremendously good job with what we’ve done. We’ve managed a budget of about a quarter of a billion dollars a year, and we’ve been able to keep ahead of the growth in the community by providing water for residents and sanitation facilities for residents. And I think that’s very important—and able to keep up with the growth of the airport, which handles about eleven million visitors a year, and it needs expansion now, and I can remember when that airport UNLV University Libraries Thalia Dondero 16 was originally built, the furor that was around the airport, the fact that they felt their county commissioners at that time were out of their minds for building such a big airport. McCarran Airport? Yes. That’s not that big, really. Well, I know it, but they were highly criticized for building such a big, elaborate airport, and it was farsighted on the part of the commissioners at that time. And I do believe that it takes a lot of farsighted individuals to look ahead to the future as to what’s going to be, and I know that we’ve come under some criticism in the present commission on some of the items that we felt was important for the growth of the community, such as the wastewater treatment plant, which is an enormous $53 million plan that will clean up the water that goes to the lake. And it’s absolutely necessary that we provide as clean of water as possible for flowing back in the lake, because that’s also our drinking water, and it’s also California’s drinking water. So I think anything that we can do to clean the environment up—and we’re working on air quality at this time, and land use planning is so important to all of Nevada because of the high rate of growth in the area, and it’s just been tremendous. I feel that anything we can do to look into the future and provide a better way of life for the residents that are coming up—our children and their children and everyone else that’s going to be living here—that we probably aren’t doing enough. But it is a big factor in the county commission at this time, the land use planning or the comprehensive planning that’s