Saturday, January 11, 2003
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

Mourners pay respects to casino giant

'Father of modern LV' Bill Bennett remembered for compassion, philanthropy

Diana Bennett gives a eulogy Friday for her father and casino pioneer, Bill Bennett, during a memorial service at Artemus Ham Hall on the campus of the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. Photo by Gary Thompson.

Casino pioneer Bill Bennett was remembered during a Friday memorial service as a generous philanthropist whose business successes helped shape modern Las Vegas.

Several hundred mourners, including many of his longtime employees, came to Artemus Ham Hall on the campus of the University of Nevada, Las Vegas to say goodbye to Bennett, who died Dec. 22 at age 78.

Widely credited with popularizing his adopted hometown as a low-cost destination for travelers from Middle America, Bennett was perhaps best known for operating the Sahara and Circus Circus and developing the Luxor and Excalibur properties in the early 1990s.

The success of his business ventures helped make Bennett one of the nation's richest men. Still, he never lost his willingness to help others, mourners said.

"In so many ways, he fathered modern Las Vegas," said John Wilhelm, president of the Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees International Union, parent of the Culinary Workers Union Local 226. "(Bennett) succeeded because he valued the role of employees, especially front-line employees."

Following a 1984 labor dispute that resulted in work stoppages at several Strip properties, Wilhelm said Bennett continued to pay Circus Circus employees a higher wage than was offered at many competing hotel-casinos because Bennett did not want to back out of a previously agreed upon contract with his workers.

Later, Wilhelm said Bennett's compassion led him to supply a catering truck that provided free meals to union workers as they picketed outside the Frontier in the mid-1990s.

"He gave those people three hot meals a day for five years," Wilhelm said. "Mr. Bennett provided more than food; he provided faith in humankind."

Gov. Kenny Guinn said he and wife, Dema, first met Bill and Lynn Bennett in 1967 when both couples looked at homes near the intersection of Valley View Boulevard and Washington Avenue. The two families later developed a close friendship, and Guinn recounted how his children would spend time watching Bennett fly a remote-controlled helicopter from nearby playgrounds.

When Guinn later moved into politics, he said Bennett's only request was that his onetime neighbor would work to provide good government for the people of Nevada. Guinn said that sense of community defined Bennett's life.

"A man should never be judged by his financial success," Guinn said. "He should be judged by how he shared his success with his friends, family and those less fortunate, and that (Bennett) did well."

Although Bennett was not Jewish, Rabbi Felipe Goodman conducted Friday's ceremony to honor a man he called, "my rabbi," or teacher.

"I stand here ... as a human being without a title celebrating the life of a giant," said Goodman, who oversees Summerlin's Temple Beth Sholom congregation, a religious community that benefited from Bennett's many charitable contributions. "Mr. Bennett taught all of us that the secret to being a man is to touch others as you come across their paths in life."