Thursday, April 11, 1996 | 11:59 a.m.
Moritz "Morry" Zenoff, who as longtime editor and publisher of the Henderson Home News and Boulder City News chronicled and helped mold both communities, has died. He was 85.
Zenoff, who practiced country journalism in dealing with issues such as establishing home-rule charters and urging citizen participation, died Wednesday following a lengthy illness at a rest home in Green Valley.
Services for the 48-year Southern Nevada resident will be noon Friday at Palm Chapel Henderson on Boulder Highway. Burial will be in Boulder City Cemetery.
Zenoff came to Southern Nevada in 1948 and bought the Boulder City paper. Two years later, he established Henderson's first newspaper before the city was incorporated.
As a small-town editor, he learned early on the value of attending all important local events and establishing himself as a strong community figure.
Yet Zenoff was just as comfortable traveling the world covering national political conventions, President Jimmy Carter's Mideast trip and presidential tours of South America and Africa.
"Very aggressive reporting"
Zenoff once said of newspapering in Nevada: "An editor has to be militant and serve as a watchdog over the community -- making sure insiders don't come up with wrongdoings and outsiders don't come up with false moves."
Former Henderson Mayor Lorna Kesterson, a longtime Henderson Home News editor and reporter, said Zenoff should be remembered for his "very aggressive reporting" that played a role in both cities' formative years.
"He had a lot of clout on the politics in both cities," Kesterson said of her former boss. "It would be hard to write a definitive history about Henderson and Boulder City without mentioning him."
Bob Broadbent, a former Boulder City mayor and Clark County commissioner who today is chief of the Clark County Aviation Department, said Zenoff's coverage of events in the early 1950s was key in ushering in Boulder City's incorporation.
"He wrote extensively about a report on potential incorporation by a USC professor that led to the bill which led to incorporation of the city," said Broadbent, a Boulder City resident since 1950. "Morry was a strong supporter of both cities -- he was active in everything."
In 1978, then-County Commissioner Broadbent was on the losing end of a vote that would have appointed Zenoff to an interim term on the state Senate for District 3.
"As an editor, he was always fair," Broadbent said, noting that he felt a man possessing that quality deserved a shot in the Legislature.
In 1974, on the 50th anniversary of his career in journalism, Zenoff received the Peter Zenger Press Award from the Fraternal Order of Eagles.
The prestigious award was named for the 18th century New York newspaper editor who was jailed because of his editorials protesting repressive measures employed by British colonial governors. Zenger's victory in court helped establish freedom of the press in the United States.
Morry Zenoff Day held
In addition to that honor, Zenoff received numerous community service awards and, in mid-April 1978, was honored with Morry Zenoff Day in Henderson.
After selling the weekly Boulder City paper and twice-weekly Henderson paper in 1981 to former two-term Nevada Gov. Mike O'Callaghan, Zenoff was appointed an associate editor at the SUN, where he penned his "Morry's Story" column during the 1980s.
"Morry was a free spirit when I first met him in 1956," said O'Callaghan, who in addition to publishing both papers is executive editor of the SUN. "He could see the bright side of most situations. I enjoyed writing for him during those early years. Later, he became a most interesting friend and associate."
Born June 3, 1910, in Amhurst, Wis., Zenoff graduated from the University of Wisconsin, where he majored in journalism.
Working as sports editor for the school paper, the Daily Cardinal, Zenoff covered such events as Davis Cup tennis matches, the Cotton Bowl college football game and Major League Baseball's All-Star Game.
After college, Zenoff worked for the Wisconsin News in Milwaukee.
During World War II, Zenoff served as public information officer for the Merchant Marines in New York City. He also was a Navy veteran.
In 1956, Zenoff founded a local television station, KSHO Channel 13. Two years earlier, he had established a local radio station. He sold both businesses in the late 1950s to concentrate on newspaper publishing.
A foreign correspondent
Zenoff's coverage of major Nevada events included above-ground atomic bomb detonations in the 1950s and an execution in the Nevada gas chamber. He also filed reports from world capitals as the SUN's foreign correspondent.
Zenoff was past president of the Nevada State Publishers Association, the Las Vegas Press Club and the Southern Nevada chapter of Sigma Delta Chi, a journalism society.
He was a member of the Haulapai Club and Rotary Club, among others.
Zenoff also was first chairman of the state board in charge of the Nevada State Girls School in Caliente and served on the Olympic Advisory Committee for the 1960 Winter Games at Squaw Valley, near Lake Tahoe.
Among his hobbies were golf and traveling. He spent much of the 1980s at his second home in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico.
Zenoff's brother, David Zenoff of Carlsbad, Calif., was a longtime local attorney who in the 1970s served as a Nevada Supreme Court justice.
Zenoff's other survivors include his wife, Eva Marie Zenoff; a daughter, Victoria of San Francisco; a son, David Zenoff III, also of San Francisco; two other brothers, William, of Stevens Point, Wis., and Abe, of Chicago; and three grandchildren. A brother and sister preceded him in death.
DONATIONS: In Zenoff's name to the Alzheimer's Foundation.
Zenoff
archive
