Mary Hausch was born September of 1949 in Akron, Ohio. Hausch arrived in Las Vegas, Nevada during a spring vacation with four friends. The spontaneity of the trip and her enjoyment of the weather resulted in her applying for, and getting, a reporter position at the Las Vegas Review- Journal (R-J). For the next nineteen years, she worked her way up the newspaper ladder, covered local education issues that included desegregation, a groundbreaking series of Prisoners of War- Missing in Action war stories, and the Nevada legislature.