Convention pioneer Jamison dies

Wednesday, Dec. 18, 1996 | 11:59 a.m.

David Jamison, a one-time Hoover Dam worker and truck company owner who helped pioneer the lucrative convention and exposition service industry in Las Vegas, has died. He was 79.

Jamison died Sunday of heart failure at his Henderson home following a two-year battle with heart problems.

Services for the 66-year Southern Nevada resident will be 2 p.m. today at Palm Mortuary, Henderson.

"What made my husband so successful in convention services was that he was really friendly with people and was a real good salesman who loved his work," said Margaret Jamison, noting that her husband brought literally thousands of conventions and expositions to Las Vegas.

Jamison, who in 1959 founded Las Vegas Convention Services, brought the first American Mining Congress convention to Las Vegas -- a forerunner of the huge expositions that have followed -- and booked numerous other key conventions in the industry's formative years in Southern Nevada.

In 1979, as president of Greyhound Exposition Services, today the largest company of its kind operating in Las Vegas, Jamison was honored as Las Vegas' Convention Man of the Year.

Prior to his convention work, Jamison was president of Young and Rue, which in the early 1950s was the largest trucking company in Nevada.

Born Feb. 7, 1917, in Hoffland, Neb., Jamison was the second youngest of six children born to a family of farmers. His father moved the family to Boulder City in 1931 when he was hired as a carpenter supervisor on the construction of Hoover Dam.

Jamison and the children of the earliest of Boulder City's settlers were bused to Las Vegas High School -- then the only secondary school in the valley -- where he was a year ahead of Margaret.

"I didn't know him then," she said, noting that her family settled in Las Vegas, also in 1931. "A few years later, a friend of mine was dating a man from Boulder City and they got us together.

"I guess you could say it was a blind date that lasted 59 years."

The two were married in St. George, Utah, in 1938.

Jamison, who as a teenager had spent two summers as a crane operator working on the dam, ran the Yakima, Wash., office of General Mills during World War II, manufacturing feed for farm animals.

The couple moved to Henderson in 1947, where he bought Young's Transfer and Storage, which became Young & Rue in 1953.

Margaret said David got into the convention business after two organizers of the mining convention hired him to do the storage work for the show.

"After that, he went into business with the two gentlemen," Margaret said. "He ran Las Vegas Convention Services for many years before selling the business to Greyhound."

In 1985, after retiring from Greyhound Exposition Services, the 68-year-old Jamison, shunning retirement, joined United Exposition Services as special assistant to the president. He worked there for seven years before retiring in 1992.

Jamison was a member of the Masonic Lodge of Yakima and the Henderson Elks Lodge and was a past member of the Henderson Lion's Club. An avid golfer with a 6 handicap, Jamison was a charter member of the Black Mountain Country Club, which he helped build.

In addition to to his wife, Jamison is survived by two sons, John Richard Jamison of Las Vegas and James William Jamison of Lorten, Va.; a daughter, Mary Elizabeth Dugan of Carson City; a sister, Helen Baker of Las Vegas; eight grandchildren; and one great-grandchild.

Jamison