Metro’s oldest dies at age 91

Cathy Scott

Tuesday, June 3, 1997 | 11:32 a.m.

Ninety-one-year-old Frank Smith said his goal wasn't to live to 100. He wanted to be productive and not get in the way.

The former Metro Police employee died Thursday in Sparks in front of his typewriter while writing a recipe for one of the dishes he loved to prepare for friends and family.

Smith, the department's oldest employee, worked at Metro's photo lab until August when he moved to Sparks to live with his daughter. Phil Kulis, Smith's supervisor while at Metro, moved him to Northern Nevada.

"He was like my grandfather," Kulis said. "He told wonderful stories and he was a pleasure to be around. He was a great guy. I loved the man."

Smith worked at Metro two months short of 16 years. He drove the 15-mile round trip each day from his southeast home, where he had lived since 1956. He said he continued working because he wanted to stay active. His 19-hour-a-week job included numbering and cataloging all the work-card and police mugshots for Metro, the Clark County Detention Center and the city jail.

But in August, Smith was feeling his age. He sold his house and his car, "then I drove him up to Sparks," Kulis said, adding that Smith had been battling cancer for several years.

"He moved up to Sparks so his daughter could take care of him," he said. "He had gotten to the point where it was hard to get around."

Smith's daughter returned home and found her father sitting at his typewriter with his head leaning against the window. She thought he was taking a nap, but he had passed away.

"If you're hard at work and all of a sudden you take a nap and you're gone, what a way to go," Kulis said.

Kulis last saw Smith in March.

"I was up skiing in Tahoe in February and I stopped in to see him," he said. "He was in good spirits. He looked good."

Born in 1906 in Muskegon, Mich., Smith moved to Las Vegas from San Francisco in 1949. He left Muskegon as a cabinboy on a steamboat when he was 18.

He worked as a captain in the showrooms of the Desert Inn and Caesars Palace until his semi-retirement in 1968.

In 1942, he married his wife, Kay, a Las Vegas theatrical manager and agent. She died in 1986. He is survived by his daughter, two grandchildren and three great-grandchildren.

During an interview with the SUN on his 90th birthday in March 1996, Smith joked that he didn't buy green bananas "because I don't know how long I'll last."

At the same time, he said, "I can't just sit in a rocking chair and grow old."

Funeral services were scheduled for 11 a.m. today at Palm Mortuary in Henderson. He'll be buried next to his wife in Palm Memorial Park.