New school to be named after slain NLV policeman

Friday, July 25, 1997 | 8:48 a.m.

An architect of school desegregation and a North Las Vegas police officer who was slain in the line of duty are among five people the School Board has chosen to honor by naming schools after them.

The School Board voted Thursday to name a school in the southwest portion of the valley after Clifford J. Lawrence, who was instrumental in developing the sixth-grade center plan, a forerunner of Prime 6 schools. White students were bused into predominantly black areas in West and North Las Vegas under the sixth-grade center plan, which began desegregation in the school district.

Slain North Las Vegas police officer Raul Elizondo Jr. will have his name on an elementary school in North Las Vegas at Lone Mountain Road and Goldfield Street.

Elizondo was shot and killed on Jan. 30, 1995. A three-year veteran of the NLV police force, he is the only NLV officer to be killed in the line of duty.

An elementary school in the southeast section of the Las Vegas valley will be named after longtime principal William K. Moore.

During the 28 years Moore spent with the school district, he chose to spend most of that time as a building principal. Except for a six-year stint in the curriculum and instructional services department, Moore spent his career as principal at McWilliams Elementary and Wengert Elementary until his retirement in 1993. Since then he has continued to volunteer his time in the classroom and interviewing teacher candidates.

Former Acting Superintendent Charles A. Silvestri will have a middle school bearing his name in the south section of the valley.

During Silvestri's 26-year career with the school district, he served as a history and government teacher and spent most of his time with the district in the personnel services division. He retired in 1989 as associate superintendent of the personnel division.

Silvestri is now the director of Southwest Gas Corp.'s consumer and community relations division.

A middle school in the northwest will bear the name of Irwin A. Molasky, a prominent Las Vegas businessman.

In addition to developing residential, commercial and retail properties in Clark County, Molasky discounted land the school district bought to build Thomas and Wengert Elementary schools and land the university purchased to expand UNLV.

He is also founding chairman of the UNLV Foundation and founding board member of the Clark County Public Education Foundation. He recently established the Molasky Family Endowment, which the Public Education Foundation will use to develop a school-to-work program.