Thursday, March 13, 1997 | 11:59 a.m.
THALIA DONDERO has always been good luck for Las Vegas. Wednesday night was no exception.
If ever the newer arrivals to our wonderful city want to meet the founding families of Las Vegas, they need only attend the annual Knight of the Gael dinners at Bishop Gorman High School. For it is there each year that the names and faces of the people who helped forge this city from the desert sands come together in the spirit of community.
I am at an age where I can remember when there were less than a handful of high schools in Clark County. The newest arrival five decades ago was Bishop Gorman and the fuss made over a private, parochial high school was considerable. It was truly a community effort that built Gorman adjacent to a dusty road that was just beginning to open up the newest part of the valley to settlement. The corner of Maryland Parkway and Oakey Boulevard was well "out of town" in those days but those who made it happen had a faith in this valley that transcended any one religious belief. Theirs was a belief that Las Vegas would, one day, be the envy of the world.
Today's Las Vegans might find it a bit unusual that the benefactors of Gorman High School were not just the members of the Catholic faith in those early days. Unlike the Eastern cities, which grew up with well-defined neighborhoods for religious and ethnic living, Las Vegas was a melting pot for people who yearned for a better life for themselves and their children, which left little room for the standard kinds of divisiveness that marked those cities from which they came. Most of the Jewish population, for example, teamed with their Catholic neighbors to make Gorman High School a reality. That's what people did in those earlier, less conflicted days of Las Vegas.
Wednesday night brought many of the same people or, at least, the families of those early pioneers to the Palace Station to honor a woman who has represented all that has been good in our community for over 50 years. When Thalia Dondero was awarded the Knight of the Gael award by Father Tom, there were over 500 Las Vegans who understood and appreciated that what Las Vegas has become and what we have to look forward to has not been achieved without the incredible commitments of time, energy and resources from people like Thalia.
Names like Marge Barrick, Claudine Williams and Kitty Rodman are examples of the people who were not only there to support Thalia but who have been "there" for every good and worthy cause in Las Vegas. Family names like Cashman, Tiberti, Gaughan, Gerringer, Blasco and O'Reilly have a special place in the history, past and present, of Las Vegas. They, too, were there for Thalia.
And just like Thalia Dondero has been there for her friends, neighbors and constituents during a lifetime of public and private service so, too, were hundreds of people who felt honored, not obliged, to be at Palace Station to pay honor to a real and vital friend of Las Vegas.
At one point in the evening, I had to chuckle at the irony of Father Tom announcing the numerous public honors bestowed upon Thalia by elected officialdom. There were proclamations from Mayor Jan Laverty Jones and the Clark County Commission. There were special entries in the Congressional Record and proclamations from Harry Reid, Dick Bryan and John Ensign and, of course, a Nevada day naming from Gov. Bob Miller. Kenny Guinn was also there and he, too, would have issued a proclamation. But he'll have to wait a little longer for the privilege.
It wasn't that long ago when Thalia, as a three-term chairman of the Clark County Commission, could be seen on almost any given night handing out branding irons and issuing proclamations to other worthy Nevadans. It was high time she got some of it back!
So it was lucky for Gorman that Thalia proved a worthy honoree because her enthusiasm and level of community support will make a successful fund-raising dinner next year a cinch. Most of the people in that room were lucky for another reason, too.
The UNLV Rebels basketball team was hosting Memphis in the first round of the NIT Wednesday night and a sizable number of the dinner patrons were also holding tickets for the tip at the Thomas & Mack. Lucky for us, Thalia was one of the folks with tickets and a desire to see the game.
Father Tom, who could have talked for hours and thanked Gorman's generous donors for even longer, heeded Thalia's admonition to keep things moving. As in most of his endeavors, he was successful in finishing before tipoff, which allowed much of the room to empty into their seats on the UNLV campus.
Of course, the results of Wednesday night's game have already made the highlights of television news and are well-documented in today's SUN. When we arrived at the Thomas & Mack, though, the Rebels were reeling. When the dust cleared, Bill Bayno's scrappy Rebels had played their way back into the game and into a lead that held up through the final buzzer.
Thalia Dondero's luck, once again, rubbed off on the community she loves and the university basketball team she loves almost as much. Monday night we get to play our second game and, who knows, this could be the start of something big --- again. And it couldn't have happened without Thalia.
Just like Las Vegas couldn't have happened without her. Well, perhaps we could have gotten this far had Thalia Dondero not been a part of our lives. But I know one thing. Without Thalia Dondero, a big part of what gives our community the heart and soul that makes us the envy of the world would have disappeared.
Thanks, Thalia, for being you and being here.
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