Monday, Sept. 13, 1999 | 11:35 a.m.
In the early 1950s Jimmy Gay was a black hotel executive at a time when blacks -- including his longtime friends Sammy Davis Jr., Nat "King" Cole and Billy Eckstine -- were not allowed to stay in Las Vegas Strip hotels, .
But Gay was not just a pioneer black civic leader in white Las Vegas. He also was admired in his West Las Vegas community for his leadership, beginning when he established the first youth recreational activities for black children.
And Gay risked his high standing in the white establishment to play a vital role in desegregating the Las Vegas Strip.
James Arthur Gay III, one of the best known and most admired local black leaders of his generation and the first black to obtain a mortician's license in the state of Nevada, died Friday of complications from a stroke at Odyssey Hospice. He was 83.
Gay also was the first black appointed to the Nevada Athletic Commission, the first black in the United States to be certified as a water safety instructor by the Red Cross and he was an alternate on the 1936 U.S. Olympic track team.
Services for the Las Vegas resident of 53 years will be 1 p.m. Wednesday at Palm Mortuary Chapel on Main Street. Visitation will be noon to 7 p.m. Tuesday at the same location. Interment will be in the Palm Mortuary Mausoleum.
"My father transcended color," Clonie Gay, the eldest of Jimmy's four children, said. "Although he was one of the more moderate leaders in the NAACP at that time, he played just as important a role as the others because he was able to bridge whites and blacks in this community. And in his position, he got many blacks good jobs."
Former two-term Nevada Gov. Mike O'Callaghan remembered his longtime friend as "a pleasant man who always had time for anybody desiring to improve themselves in the fields of education or athletics.
"Jimmy gave long hours to help other people and seldom, if ever, asked for anything for himself," O'Callaghan, executive editor of the Las Vegas Sun, said. "He made Las Vegas a better place to live."
Gay often held more than one job at a time. Over the years he was an executive at the Sands, Union Plaza, Fremont, Aladdin and Silverbird hotels. He started working for Palm Mortuary in the early 1950s and got his mortician's license in 1962. He retired from Palm in the early 1980s.
But getting a job was not always easy for Gay, especially when he came here in 1946.
"My father was a college-educated man and a businessman in Arkansas, but when he came to Las Vegas he could not get work in either the hotels or the mortuaries because he was black," Clonie said.
"So he took a job as a cook at Sills Drive-in, a popular restaurant in the area of Charleston and Las Vegas Boulevard."
Gay got his break in the late 1940s when the city opened the Jefferson Recreation Center at D Street and Jefferson Avenue, and he became its director. There Gay taught swimming and coached basketball and football.
In 1952 the Sands hotel-casino hired Gay as director of communications -- one of the highest posts that a black held in the resort industry at that time. Later Gay became the hotel's personnel consultant.
In 1971 Gay was hired as an assistant general manager -- the No. 2 post -- at the Union Plaza hotel-casino, which he helped open in July of that year. He remained there until February 1973.
Gay was a friend of nearly every major entertainer on the Strip from the 1950s through the '70s, including Frank Sinatra, who offered Gay a job as his personal valet. But by then Gay's roots were firmly planted in Las Vegas and he turned down the offer.
In 1958 Democratic Gov. Grant Sawyer appointed Gay to the Nevada Athletic Commission. Republican Gov. Paul Laxalt reappointed Gay, who served 10 years at that post. In 1976 Gay served on the Clark County School Board.
Born March 6, 1916, in Fordyce, Ark., Gay was the youngest of three children of James Arthur Gay Jr. and the former Patricia Hayes.
Orphaned at age 3, Gay was raised by Lillian Crow, a black woman in Fordyce. But he soon got the attention of the prominent white Benton family, which owned much of Fordyce.
The Bentons hired Gay as a house boy at age 7. Gay, who developed a strong work ethic early on, would take on tasks such as washing the family's dishes even though he had to stand on a crate to reach the sink.
"My father was always an ambitious man," Clonie said. "The Bentons treated him like one of their own children. Members of the family kept in touch with him to the end."
At Fordyce High, Gay was a student trainer on the football team. Before each game one of the players would touch him for good luck. That classmate was Paul "Bear" Bryant, who would become the second winningest coach in college football history at Alabama. They remained good friends until Bryant's death in the 1980s.
After graduating Gay went to Arkansas Agricultural, Mining and Normal College at Pine Bluffs -- today known as the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluffs.
There Gay became a world-class sprinter. He set a national record in the 100-yard dash and made the Olympic team as an alternate in 1936, the Berlin Games at which Jesse Owens won four gold medals.
Gay graduated from Arkansas AM&N in 1937 with a bachelor of science degree. He would receive honorary doctor of humanities degrees from the school in 1976 and in 1985.
On June 7, 1941, Gay married the former Hazel Gloster, who survives him.
Shortly afterward the Benton family sent him to mortuary school in Chicago set him up in business at a Fordyce mortuary. After World War II he moved west.
In Las Vegas Guy quickly earned honors that rarely were bestowed on people of color in those segregated days. He was named Las Vegas Jaycees Man of the Year in 1952 and received a City of Hope commendation in 1959. Several times he was named NAACP Man of the Year.
As a member of executive board of the NAACP, Gay, along with Dr. Charles West, dentist James McMillan, attorney Charles Kellar and others, got Strip hotels to agree on March 26, 1960, to desegregate their facilities and allow blacks as guests.
During his tenure on the Nevada Athletic Commission, Las Vegas became known as the boxing capital of the United States.
Gay loved all types of sports. As a golfer he recorded eight documented holes-in-one on local golf courses, most of them at the third hole of Las Vegas Municipal. In his prime he had a 5 handicap.
Active in local politics, Gay was a member of both the Clark County and state Democratic central committees. He also served 21 years on the executive board of Culinary Local 226.
He was also a former executive board member of the National Conference of Christians and Jews and president of the Negro Funeral Directors Association.
On July 22, 1972, state and local officials, business leaders and friends held a testimonial dinner for Gay at Caesars Palace. Sinatra purchased two tables so that Gay could designate the people he wanted to celebrate the occasion with him.
In 1978 the city of Las Vegas named the park at Washington Avenue and D Street after Gay.
On March 25, 1985, the city of Las Vegas and state of Nevada honored him with "Jimmy Gay Day." In 1988 Gay was named a Distinguished Nevadan.
In the late 1980s, an ailing Gay, who by then had suffered a heart attack and a stroke, left the public spotlight to spend time at home with his family. Each morning he would make breakfast for Hazel and they would take long, leisurely walks and enjoy watching television together.
Three weeks ago Gay suffered a major stroke from which he did not recover.
In addition to his wife and daughter, Gay is survived by two other daughters, Phyllis Gay and Betty Harris, both of Las Vegas; two sons, James Gay IV and Phillip Gay, both of Las Vegas; 10 grandchildren; and 17 great-grandchildren.
He was preceded in death by a brother, Robert, and a sister, Ruth.
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