Las Vegas bids farewell to some of its most noteworthy residents

From giants in the casino industry such as Jackie Gaughan to the last lady Munchkin, Las Vegas bid adieu to many noteworthy men and women in 2014.

But two who died this year will be remembered not for their fame but for the way they died while on duty to protect the city and citizens they swore to serve.

Las Vegas police officer Alyn Beck, 41, and his partner, Igor Soldo, 31, from Metro’s Northeast Area Command, were shot and killed by an anti-government couple, Jerad and Amanda Miller, while eating lunch June 8 at a pizza parlor.

Thousands attended the officers’ funerals and praised them for their devotion to their families and police service.

In March, nearly 1,000 longtime friends, customers and employees attended the funeral for Gaughan, the 93-year-old legendary downtown casino pioneer who owned parts of eight casinos during his 64-year gaming career. He knew his employees and many customers by their first names and often would walk the floors of such landmarks as the El Cortez, his last residence, greeting guests and performing even the most menial tasks.

Highly acclaimed Nevada gaming attorney Robert D. “Bob” Faiss lost his bout with cancer in June. He was 79.

Faiss was a partner in the former Lionel Sawyer & Collins law firm. He served as chairman of the gaming and regulatory law department. He was recognized by gaming industry leaders, political figures and the legal community for his influence on state, national and international gaming law and regulatory policy.

Gaming icon Burton Cohen died in May at age 90. He managed some of the Strip’s most famous resorts during a career that spanned multiple decades. The list includes the Flamingo, Caesars Palace, the Desert Inn, Thunderbird and Dunes. He was inducted into the Gaming Hall of Fame in 1995 and was serving on the MGM Resorts International board of directors at the time of his death.

On the political front, Nevadans paid their respects in April to former Assembly Speaker Joe Dini, 85, of Yerington. A Democrat, he presided over the lower house for a record eight terms in a career that began in 1967.

Among entertainers who died in 2014 was Ruth Robinson Duccini, the last of the female Munchkins from the 1939 movie “The Wizard of Oz.” She died Jan. 6 in Las Vegas at age 95.

Las Vegas’ first African-American television personality, William H. “Bob” Bailey, 87, died in May. He traveled from New York City in 1955 to be a part of the opening show for the Moulin Rouge, the first racially integrated hotel-casino in Las Vegas. A civil rights activist and businessman, Bailey settled in Las Vegas with his wife, Anna, and worked at local television stations as a variety show host, director, producer and newscaster.

On Dec. 22, civil rights icon Sarann Knight Preddy, of Las Vegas, died at 94. In 1950, she became the first African-American to receive a state gaming license, for the Tonga Club in Hawthorne.

Seven years later she returned to Las Vegas, where her family had lived since 1942. She broke the color barrier again by arranging through the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People to be hired as a dealer at Jerry’s Nugget in North Las Vegas. She worked with others to put the Moulin Rouge on the National Register of Historic Places before it was destroyed in a fire in 2003.

Jim Rogers, who owned TV stations including Las Vegas’ KSNV-TV, Channel 3, died in June at age 75. Rogers was recognized by Time in 2000 for being one the nation’s top 12 philanthropists. As chancellor of the Nevada System of Higher Education from 2005 to 2009, he donated his salary to the university system.

Actor Denny Miller, who played Tarzan in the 1959 remake, “Tarzan, the Ape Man,” died in September. He was 80 and had lived in Las Vegas for 12 years.

High-tenor crooner Jerry Vale, 83, a friend of Frank Sinatra’s, died in May.

Don J. Christensen, whose family owned MJ Christensen Jewelers from the 1940s until 2000, died in June at 91.

Delbert Sylvester Barth, a UNLV lecturer, U.S. Military Academy graduate and assistant surgeon general with the U.S. Public Health Service, died in March in Henderson. He was 88.

One of Southern Nevada’s last survivors of the Dec. 7, 1941, attack on Pearl Harbor, Navy veteran Joseph E. Honish, of Henderson, died in January. He was 93.

Darwin Colby, the last remaining worker from the Hoover Dam project, died in November. He was 98.

The Las Vegas Review-Journal and Stephens Media lost four former associates in 2014: longtime features editor Frank Fertado, veteran newspaperman and former editorial support services director Charlie Waters, columnist and horticulturist Linn Mills and Stephens Press publisher Carolyn Hayes Uber.

Contact Keith Rogers at krogers@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0308. Find him on Twitter: @KeithRogers2.