Joe Clarke has embraced the service-oriented ethic of his ancestors, pictured in family photos surrounding Clarke. He holds a photo of his grandfather, former University of Nevada Regent Joseph M. Foley. Photo by Branimir Kvartuc/Review-Journal. Former federal Judge Roger Foley has inspired generations of family members to enter public service. Review-Journal File Photo

An eagle-eyed 6-year-old spotted a familiar name on a facade as his family whizzed through downtown Las Vegas.

Passing the Foley Federal Building, young Joe Clarke turned to his mother, Jeanne Foley Clarke, with one question: "Is that us?"

The courthouse's name is indeed a tribute to Joe Clarke's Silver State ancestors, a collective of citizens who made the Foley name synonymous with law and politics in Nevada.

Since the Foleys arrived in the state a century ago, they've produced a string of district attorneys, judges and legislators.

Thomas L. Foley, the first family forefather to hang a shingle in Nevada as an attorney, set up shop in Goldfield in 1906 and was active in Democratic politics.

Foley's son, Roger T., moved his family to Las Vegas in 1928 and was a prosecutor, district judge and federal judge. Among Roger Foley's sons were district attorneys, a federal judge, a state senator and a university regent. The Foley family even has a motto: "That I may be of service."

A couple of young Foleys are embracing that adage.

In 2003, after Joe Clarke graduated from the University of California, Los Angeles with a philosophy degree, he began a series of jobs with high-profile political campaigns.

First up was a fundraising post with the California gubernatorial campaign of Cruz Bustamante.

After Bustamante lost the 2003 special election to Arnold Schwarzenegger, Clarke took his political energies national. He joined the presidential campaign of Wesley Clark, coordinating events in New Hampshire, New Mexico and Wisconsin. Clark bowed out of the race in February 2004; Clarke then moved on to the Kerry-Edwards effort, where he stayed until he watched the team concede the November 2004 election in Boston.

Clarke's entree into politics was both practical and romantic: practical, because his aunt, Nevada lobbyist and former state legislator Helen Foley, had connections with the Bustamante campaign. And romantic because Clarke was adding his legacy to a long list of public servants.

"The Foley family is traditionally a strong, Democratic family," said Clarke, great-grandson of Roger T. Foley and grandson of former University of Nevada Regent Joseph M. Foley. "I want my work to be noble and something I can be proud of. Working in Democratic politics has made me feel that way."

Clarke also learned that, for now, politics isn't his first love.

Today, Clarke, 24, has a tutoring business in California, helping kids in reading, history and chemistry. The University of San Francisco accepted him into its graduate creative-writing program; he'll begin studies there in June. His goal: to become a college professor and fiction writer.

But Clarke, whose father, Will, is a California attorney, wouldn't rule out a second career in law. He'd also consider rejoining politics if he felt he could afford the break from literature studies and he found a candidate with whom he felt a strong connection.

His mother wouldn't be surprised to see him in either arena.

"After school is done (in two years), he's open for almost anything," Jeanne Clarke said. "I think I'm going to be reading Joe's articles and poetry in major journals, but I do see him getting into politics, and I think Joe would be an excellent lawyer. He likes meeting people, and he likes variety. He is really a man for others, and I think that's what my father would have loved."

Clarke's cousin, Richard Meyer, is also directing his career toward public service.

Meyer, 24, has landed a summer job at the nonprofit Breakthrough Technologies Institute in Washington, D.C., where he will compile databases on companies involved in hydrogen fuel-cell production and help form public messages about energy sources beyond fossil fuels.

The internship will supplement the master's in global environmental politics that Meyer is halfway through earning at Washington's American University.

Meyer's graduate degree represents a detour from his earlier professional plans.

After he finished his bachelor's in physics at California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo, Calif., Meyer was scanning the country for graduate physics schools. He stumbled across American University's environmental politics program and said he immediately saw his chance to "make a difference."

"I decided that the hard sciences and doing academic research or research for industry was not going to be fulfilling for me," Meyer said. "I felt like I'd be working on problems not everyone in the world would understand. By moving toward the policy route, I'm hoping to effect change through policy initiatives, education and research."

Meyer, whose mother, Kathleen, is Jeanne Clarke's sister, said immersion in the Foley family ethos of public service has influenced his career goals. Meyer said his relatives didn't lecture him about the importance of public life, but watching family members in action sent him a subtle message about making work meaningful.

"My grandfather was always influential in his job. He wasn't just doing the 9-to-5 thing," Meyer said.

"When he worked for the board of regents, it was not so much for the public life as it was for his concern with serving the community. That instilled a sense that any career I chose would need to matter and would mean something beyond just getting a paycheck. I think he set an example. It's almost in my blood."

So Meyer hopes in the next decade to be at the forefront of creating energy policies that would curb global warming. And he thinks he might even run into a fellow Foley along the way.

"I could see myself as an environmental-policy consultant, and I would come across Joe (Clarke) working as a speech writer for major politicians," Meyer said. "I would definitely try to sell him on policy for his speeches."

It's a prospect that thrills Helen Foley.

"I would love it. They're both very talented, and besides being cousins, they're great friends," Foley said of her nephews. "They're deeply rooted with a good sense of justice and ethics, and a universal feeling that it's our family's responsibility to help make this world a better place."