Coroner: Kenny Guinn died from trauma caused by roof fall

By Las Vegas Sun Staff (contact)

Published Monday, Aug. 9, 2010 | 9:32 a.m.

Updated Monday, Aug. 9, 2010 | 9:47 a.m.

The Clark County Coroner's Office has ruled that former Gov. Kenny Guinn's death was the result of blunt chest and head trauma caused by falling from the roof of his house.

The coroner said this morning that Guinn's fatal fall on July 22 caused his heart to stop. The death was ruled accidental.

Guinn was pronounced dead at University Medical Center at 11:07 a.m. He was 73.

Guinn was making repairs to his roof when he collapsed. His wife, Dema, found him but wasn't able to resuscitate him and called paramedics.

"He was 73 years old, still proud of his ability to fix things," family spokesman Billy Vassiliadis said on the day of Guinn's death. "He was as full of vim as ever."

Guinn, a Republican who guided Nevada from January 1999 through the end of his second term in 2006, helped push through Nevada's popular Millennium Scholarship program, which made it easier for high school graduates in this state to attend Nevada colleges.

He served as superintendent of the Clark County School District from 1969 through 1978, when he was named an executive of Nevada Savings and Loan. In the late 1980s he was president and chairman of PriMerit Bank.

From 1988 through 1997, he held top positions at Southwest Gas, including roles as its chairman and CEO. He also served in 1994 and 1995 as interim president of UNLV.

Guinn won the first of his two terms for governor in November 1998, defeating former Las Vegas Mayor Jan Laverty Jones, a Democrat, with 52 percent of the vote. He then won reelection four years later, earning 68 percent of the vote in a landslide victory over Democrat Joe Neal.

As governor he saw expansive growth in the state's leading industry but also difficult episodes — the tourism downturn that followed the East Coast terrorist attacks of 2001 and a bitter fight over raising taxes during the 2003 Legislature.