Boulder City resident finances college center

Most of the College of Southern Nevada centers in rural and low-income areas that were supposed to close next week won't, thanks to plans to shift responsibilities, a reworking of deals and some cuts.

But the CSN center in Boulder City will remain open because of one guy: an 83-year-old with a pile of money who gets, essentially, nothing out of the deal.

"I think it's terrifically important to the community," said Bill Smith, who runs the W & E Smith Foundation with his wife, Elaine, and their three grown children.

Smith, a former councilman and one-time candidate for mayor, announced his plan to save the Boulder City center at a meeting of the higher education system's Board of Regents earlier this month.

CSN announced a year ago that it would close the Boulder City center as well as centers in Lincoln County and Moapa. Also included were three centers in low-income areas in Las Vegas. The announcement came as higher education officials were bracing for budget cuts that they expected to be in the 14 percent range for the new fiscal year, which begins Wednesday.

But CSN's cut will more likely be around 8 percent, school spokeswoman K.C. Brekken said. So, the plan to save the centers was hatched.

She said there will be some changes. The cuts will be spread around the school, so some will surely focus on the satellite centers. Operation of the A.D. Guy Center in West Las Vegas will be transferred to its owner, the Boys and Girls Club, in conjunction with the college's workforce development division.

Specific changes in Moapa and Lincoln County are unknown, but they will not close.

In all, Brekken said, the changes should save the school about $1 million a year.

The most dramatic savings will come in Boulder City, which typically costs about $162,000 for the college to operate.

From now on, it will cost the college nothing.

When Smith heard about the closure, he said he knew he had to do something.

He and his wife started their foundation 15 years ago, he said, because they were tired of giving to charities and then having no idea how their money was spent. They focused their charitable efforts largely on local Boulder City causes.

But, why?

Well, because it's the right thing to do. Without help long, long ago, Smith might not be where he is today.

Smith grew up during the Great Depression. He served in the Army Air Corps at the tail end of World War II, though he never saw combat.

He left the Army, returned to his home in Pennsylvania, and couldn't find a decent job. So he and his brother-in-law borrowed $1,000 each from a relative and started a handyman business.

"We did anything anybody'd let us do, for a price," Smith said.

They did well, so they opened up shop. Their store was sort-of a precursor to Home Depot in Warren, Penn.

A decade and a half later, the two men sold the store. Smith moved his family to the then-small town of Corona, Calif., where he visited relatives once. That was in 1962. Smith farmed citrus, but tired of the growth. He sold his farm and, in 1990, moved to Boulder City, where growth is severely restricted by the city.

He fell in love immediately.

"It took us 15 minutes to decide, 'OK. This is for us,'" he said.

Which is one reason he and his wife started the foundation; they wanted to help their new town.

So, when CSN was looking to open up shop in Boulder City, the foundation bought the only suitable building in town and leased it to the college for $1 a year, beginning in 1995.

But there were still things such as salaries and overhead to pay for, hence the $162,000 price tag.

Smith has pledged to pay the entire bill through the foundation. "Right away," he said, "we decided we would be willing to do it."

Christine Carroll, who has worked at the Boulder City center for 11 years, said it is vitally important to the community. She said 300 to 400 students trek through there each semester for all kinds of classes, from general college courses to community classes on art or computers.

It has served local needs, and sometimes serves as an overflow campus for students from Henderson, she said.

"It's important for people to be able to get their classes locally versus having to drive 45 minutes in each direction," she said.

Smith, who served on the Boulder City Council from 1997 to 2001 and lost bids for mayor in 2004 and this year, noted, too, that the building -- a former church -- often serves as a community meeting hall of sorts. Groups like Kiwanis and the Chamber of Commerce use it frequently. If CSN were to go away and shut the building down, it might not be available for those groups, he said.

Smith said this won't be his or the foundation's last bit of involvement in the community. He is loathe to retire, even at 83. He can't stand golf, and isn't interested in sitting around watching TV and just getting old.

"I've always needed some kind of reason to be," he said.

Contact reporter Richard Lake at rlake @reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0307.