Newsletter issued by the Las Vegas Rotary Club

Pictured L-R: Las Vegas Mayor Oran K. Gragson, his wife Bonnie, with Mrs. Ed Sullivan and Mr. Ed Sullivan. Oran Kenneth Gragson (February 14, 1911 – October 7, 2002) was an American businessman and politician. He was the longest-serving mayor of Las Vegas, Nevada, from 1959 to 1975. Gragson, a member of the Republican Party, was a small business owner who was elected Mayor on a reform platform against police corruption and for equal opportunity for people of all socio-economic and racial categories. Gragson died in a Las Vegas hospice on October 7, 2002, at the age of 91. The Oran K. Gragson Elementary School located at 555 N. Honolulu Street, Las Vegas, NV 89110 was named in his honor. Edward Vincent "Ed" Sullivan (September 28, 1901 – October 13, 1974) was an American television personality, sports and entertainment reporter, and longtime syndicated columnist for the New York Daily News. He is principally remembered as the creator and host of the television variety program The Toast of the Town, later popularly—and, eventually, officially—renamed The Ed Sullivan Show. Broadcast for 23 years from 1948 to 1971, it set a record as the longest-running variety show in US broadcast history. "It was, by almost any measure, the last great TV show," proclaimed television critic David Hinckley. "It's one of our fondest, dearest pop culture memories."