Abstract
The Valerie Wiener Papers (approximately 1920-2023) document the life and career of former Nevada state senator, Valerie Wiener. Materials document her political career serving in the Nevada State Senate and working as the press secretary for Harry Reid congressional offices. The collection also includes materials that represent Wiener's work as a communications specialist through her consulting businesses and her nonprofit work. Other materials in this collection document Wiener's personal life including her childhood and family, educational experiences, and her spiritual practice.
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Scope and Contents Note
The Valerie Wiener Papers (approximately 1920-2023) document the life and career of former Nevada state senator, Valerie Wiener. The majority of the materials document her political career serving in the Nevada State Senate and working as the press secretary for Harry Reid congressional offices. The collection also includes materials that represent Wiener's work as a communications specialist through her consulting businesses, Wiener Communications Group and Valerie Wiener Enterprises. Materials also document Wiener's experience operating two nonprofit organizations, the Valerie Wiener Foundation and the Public Service Institute of Nevada. The collection also includes some materials about her family including her father Louis Wiener, Jr. and mother Ava Tui Knight. Other materials in this collection document Wiener's personal life including her childhood, education, and spiritual practice including audio recordings and scripts of meditations and prayers led by Valerie as a Licensed Spiritual Practitioner for the Center for Spiritual Living.
Access Note
Collection is open for research. Arrangements must be made in advance to access digital files; please contact UNLV Special Collections and Archives for additional information.
Publication Rights
Materials in this collection may be protected by copyrights and other rights. See Reproductions and Use on the UNLV Special Collections and Archives website for more information about reproductions and permissions to publish.
Arrangement
Materials remain in the order which they were received. The donor's original organization scheme was followed when creating the inventory.
Biographical / Historical Note
Valerie Wiener is a former Democratic Nevada State Senator who represented Clark County District 3 from 1996 to 2012. Wiener was born in Las Vegas, Nevada in 1948 to Louis Wiener, Jr., a prominent local attorney, and Tui Ava Knight. She graduated from Las Vegas High School and earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in journalism from the University of Missouri-Columbia and a master’s in contemporary literature from the University of Illinois Springfield. Wiener also attended the McGeorge School of Law at the University of the Pacific for three years and earned certificates in grant writing and nonprofit management from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.
Wiener first started working in politics as a press secretary for Harry Reid’s congressional and senatorial offices from 1984 to 1988. She worked on Reid’s first senate campaign and created and managed a “spouse campaign” for Landra Reid which included campaign strategy plans, stump speeches, and talking points for Landra to campaign on behalf of her husband around Nevada.
From 1988 to 2015, Wiener owned and operated Valerie Wiener Enterprises and Wiener Communications Group which specialized in media training, consulting, and positioning strategies. Of note, Wiener created and facilitated a media training program for the UNLV Runnin’ Rebels from 1988 to 1990, the first media training program for a university athletics team. She also owned and operated PowerMark Publishing from 1998 to 2015 and authored books on topics such as youth issues and power positioning.
In 1996, Wiener was elected to the Nevada Legislature as a State Senator. During her time in the Nevada State Senate, Wiener sponsored 90 bills of which 75 of them became law. She focused on issues dealing with health and wellness, prescription drugs, juvenile justice, and technological crimes throughout her tenure. Wiener was involved with the National Conference of State Legislature (NCSL) “Legislators Back to School” program where she visited more than 40,000 students enrolled in the Clark County School District. Other highlights of Wiener’s legislative tenure include authoring legislation to create Nevada’s Statewide Program on Fitness and Wellness and serving as the first chair of its advisory council.
Wiener also authored legislation to create Nevada Youth Legislature, the first youth leadership program in the U.S. which gives high school students an opportunity to learn about representative government and take an active role in the legislative process through presenting one bill per term to the Nevada Legislature on an issue related to Nevada youths. She also served as the Nevada Senate’s first female Assistant Majority Leader.
Wiener retired from the Nevada Senate in 2012 and was inducted into the Nevada Senate Hall of Fame in 2019. As of 2024, Wiener continues her work in public service though the Public Service Institute of Nevada, a nonprofit organization she established in 2014 that provides student directed civic engagement opportunities.
Sources:
"Valerie Wiener." Women's Research Institute of Nevada. May 19, 2015. http://wrinunlv.org/new-leadership-nevada/voices-of-new-leadership-nevada/valerie-wiener/. Internet Archive. https://web.archive.org/web/20240000000000*/http://wrinunlv.org/new-leadership-nevada/voices-of-new-leadership-nevada/valerie-wiener/
“Board of Directors,” PublicServiceNV, Accessed February 8, 2024. https://publicservicenv.org/about-us/board-of-directors/
Preferred Citation
Valerie Wiener Papers, approximately 1920-2023. MS-01148. Special Collections and Archives, University Libraries, University of Nevada, Las Vegas. Las Vegas, Nevada. http://n2t.net/ark:/62930/f1n78f
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Acquisition Note
Materials were donated by Valerie Wiener in 2023; accession number 2023-032.
Processing Note
In 2023, Tammi Kim accessioned the collection. In 2024, Tammi Kim rehoused the collection and input the inventory and collection notes into ArchivesSpace. Files were transferred off of floppy disks and optical discs and access files were created. One website was archived using Archive-It and the description was added to the finding aid. In 2024, a four-page document was removed from box 8 and returned to the donor per their request.
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Appraisal Note
Acquired by Claytee White, director of the Oral History Research Center, as part of UNLV Special Collections and Archives holdings in women and politics. The original acquisition included 2.0 linear feet of books (23 items) that were reviewed and determined to be duplicative and out of scope with UNLV Special Collections and Archives holdings. The books were removed from the collection and securely disposed.