Las Vegas icon Norm Clarke’s life celebrated at The Smith Center: ‘A lot of life in his years’

Norm Clarke was the center stage one last time in Las Vegas on Saturday. The show was “Conversations About Norm,” and the beloved Las Vegas Review-Journal columnist was the star.

Friends, family, fans and well-wishers from Las Vegas and the cities where Clarke lived and worked attended the celebration at Myron’s at The Smith Center.

Clarke was the lord of 3A in the Review-Journal for 17 years until he stepped down in 2016. He died March 20 at age 82 after a two-decade battle with cancer.

Clarke’s final resting place is where it all started. In July, his ashes will be spread in his hometown of the tiny town of Terry, Montana.

The format for Saturday’s event followed the “Conversations With Norm” chat series on that same stage, which Clarke hosted from 2013 to 2019. Hosted by yours truly, the send-off was broken into three sections, covering the significant periods of Clarke’s life.

Big Sky Country covered his early years, focused on his upbringing in Montana. His sister, Nancy Morast; his friend of 55 years, Denny Rue; and half-brother and former Las Vegas photographer Jeff Scheid appeared in that section.

Coming out of His Shell tracked Clarke’s career from Cincinnati through Denver, when he was an ace reporter for the Associated Press. Featured were longtime friends Pat Murray, whom Clarke had known in his days in Cincinnati; close friend from Denver and Montana, Rhonda Michotte; and Denver government official Mike Dino, who recalled Clarke breaking the story that his city would be getting the Major League Baseball expansion team that would become the Rockies.

Viva Las Vegas — The Norm! Years was piloted by the popular One Steakhouse bartender and “funologist” Johnny O’Donnell, who worked N9Ne Steakhouse at the Palms on the infamous night Pete Rose “bitch-slapped” the columnist (to use Clarke’s own words); Las Vegas headliner Clint Holmes, who along with his wife, Kelly Clinton-Holmes, spent several New Year’s Eves with Norm and Cara Clarke; and longtime Vegas publicist Stephanie Wilson, who met Clarke early in Clarke’s tenure at the R-J and routinely provided celeb news tips for his column.

Smith Center President Myron Martin opened by recalling the many calls Clarke made for opening night at the venue in March 2012. Clarke’s widow, Cara, spoke at the close. Clarke’s great-niece, Bria Anderson, sang, “Unforgettable,” to end the program.

“Norm was a very adventurous person to grow up with, you never knew what he was going to do. When he did it, it was usually fantastic,” Morast said. “We had three siblings in my family, Norm was the oldest, we were only a year apart. My mom said, ‘I had three in diapers, and Norm was the most strong-willed child of the family.’ There was no doubt about it, from day one. He was handsome, charming and always had a hot car.”

Rue remembered his travels with Clarke, extensive, spontaneous and random. He reeled off a series of Wild West-flavored attractions and bars the two then-bachelors visited. “Norm got bucked off a small bull during Broadway Dairy Days and proudly limped for a week; he never complained,” Rue said.

The two ran an illegal bookmaking operation in Billings. “We got shut down by the mayor, Norm’s friend,” Rue said. “No jail time.”

“Norm’s motto was, ‘What’s next? Let’s go,’” Rue said. “We once drove 100 miles to Wyoming to get Coors Light beer because they didn’t sell it in Montana. Two days later, we were in West Yellowstone. I get home and I’m thinking, ‘What a ride.’”

Scheid recalled in 1978, Clarke’s brother and Scheid’s other half-brother Newell was killed at age 18 in an auto accident. Soon after, Scheid received an air-mailed letter from Clarke, postmarked from Paris.

“He talked about his life, how he got started, about his struggles in life,” Scheid said. “I said, ‘I have to do something with my life,’ and this letter kind of planted that seed. Maybe being a photographer at a newspaper is what I’ll do.” Scheid added with a laugh, “They get to talk to the cheerleaders.”

Clarke had befriended Murray when she worked at a wine cellar when she was in graduate school in Cincinnati. They became friends for their shared love of sports. They were so close that Clarke was godfather to Murray’s first son, David Kreuter, who would become a Marine sergeant. Kreuter was killed by a roadside bomb while serving in Iraq. Clarke hosted Murray’s family on several trips to Las Vegas.

“David and his unit came to Las Vegas for R&R before they were going to Iraq,” Murray said. “Norm made sure they had a wonderful time. It’s a memory my family and I will have forever.”

O’Donnell was at the Palms when Britney Spears stayed at the hotel, the night Clarke broke the story of Spears’ infamous 55-hour marriage, which was swiftly annulled.

“He was on top of that thing the whole weekend. Everywhere you looked it was ‘Norm-Britney, Norm Britney,’” O’Donnell said. “It was wonderful for us at the hotel, the coverage. … Before Norm came to Vegas, everybody at the hotels kind of closed in and said, ‘We can’t talk about who’s here.’”

The landscape changed when Clarke started reporting the celeb activity, and throwing names into boldface type.

“Norm had a lot of life in his years,” Cara Clarke said in her remarkes, her voice halting. “So many people have joyful, beautiful memories with him. That was the gift he gave the world.”

John Katsilometes’ column runs daily in the A section. Contact him at jkatsilometes@reviewjournal.com. Follow @johnnykats on X, @JohnnyKats1 on Instagram.