Consumer advocate left her mark on Nevada

Dick Doyle

Wednesday, April 1, 2009 | 12:22 p.m.

I've got piles of notes on my desk and my bride threatened to come in one morning with a flame thrower and do away with the mess. I had better get to them before I lose them.

First off, you need to know that you and every other person in Nevada who has ever turned on an electric light, the hot water or fired up their stove should utter a word of thanks for the life of Thelma Clark.

Thelma died earlier this month. Most people will not recognize her name or know what she did for them.

For more years than anyone can remember, Thelma was the consumer's champion before the Public Utilities Commission, scores of committees of the State Legislature and other government entities.

Sometimes she wore the mantle of AARP/Nevada's utility expert. On other occasions she represented the Nevada Silver Haired Legislative Forum, on which she served for many years.

Sometimes, she just spoke up because she needed to.

She was always working for fairness. She would stand before the Public Utilities Commission and rail against rate increases requested by Nevada Power (now NV Energy) or Southwest Gas.

She would take apart carefully calculated figures used by the energy companies and, more often than not, the utilities would ease off.

I have seen Thelma approach a legislative committee hearing and have the committee members stop whatever they were talking about and greet her. She was a favorite in the halls of power because all she wanted was a fair shake for you and me. We'll miss her.

•••

I've reached the point where I have to start throwing things away, unless I want to be buried with them. I've got a stamp collection to which I have not contributed in 40 years. The same goes for a huge notebook jammed with hundreds of first-day covers — envelopes mailed with stamps that were issued the day of mailing.

What do you do with stuff like that?

I could probably sell both collections but what would I have? Yep, a few bucks, but I would have sold the chance to sit down on a rainy day and page through the stamps, some more than 100 years old, or look at the amazing pictures on the envelopes that were mailed long ago.

•••

My neighbor next door, who died (I don't like "passed" or "passed away") last month, left her affairs in pretty good order, I am told by relatives who have been cleaning out her house. But, "pretty good order" seems not to be enough, what with the endless necessity of rounding up information for the tax man, for the bank officers, for the attorney and for a list of places where her clothing and household items would benefit others.

It all goes to get me to shake a leg and get my affairs in order so that when I depart, my bride can go to one place and find everything.

Yea. Right.

I thought about all this several years ago and got a little book titled "Making Things Easy for My Family," which provides pages where I could let my survivors know about my belongings, by business affairs, my desires and such other things.

There is space for every kind of banking information as well as a place to list debts, credit cards and other liabilities. I'm going to fill in the blanks in this book next week — even the page that lets me list who I want as my pallbearers.

Unfortunately, there's no place to list what I want to happen to my stamp and first-day cover collections.

Dick Doyle, a community volunteer and former newspaper editor, is a columnist for the Home News. He can be reached c/o the Home News, 2360 Corporate Circle, Third Floor, Henderson, NV 89074; by fax at 434-3527 or e-mail at [email protected].