Guinn’s death ruled accident

Guinn didn’t die of a heart attack or a heat-related malady, as some had speculated. The popular 73-year-old governor died from blunt force trauma to the head and chest after the accidental fall, Coroner Mike Murphy said.

“Ultimately he suffered from cardiac arrest as a result of that fall,” Murphy said.

Guinn was on the roof clearing away pine needles on July 22 before his wife of 54 years, Dema, found him on the ground about 10:30 a.m.

Dema Guinn twice begged him not to go up on the roof that morning, but it was one of the chores he wanted to do before the couple left for their Northern Nevada home, she told Review-Journal columnist Jane Ann Morrison.

“I heard the ladder scrape over the concrete, and I went outside. He was on the ground, his hand on his chest. He was dead,” Dema Guinn said.

What caused the former governor’s fall from the roof was not determined, Murphy said. Guinn’s death was ruled accidental; there was no foul play involved.

Guinn, the state’s 28th governor, served from 1999 to 2007, making education the hallmark of his two terms. He used the money Nevada received from a national tobacco lawsuit settlement to create the Millennium Scholarship program, sending 60,000 Nevada high school graduates to college to date.

Guinn spent much of his career moving between the public and private sectors. In 1969 he was named superintendent of the Clark County School District. At age 32, he was the youngest superintendent in the district’s history.

He later became the chairman and CEO of both Nevada Savings and Loan and Southwest Gas. He served as interim president of the University of Nevada, Las Vegas during one of its most tumultuous years.

Guinn was buried July 29 in his boyhood hometown of Exeter, Calif.

Review-Journal writer Mike Blasky contributed to this report. Contact reporter Lawrence Mower at lmower@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0440.