Thursday, April 30, 1998 | 9:43 a.m.
When Dr. Otto Ravenholt arrived in Las Vegas 35 years ago, he admits he felt a little apprehensive about accepting the newly created position of Clark County's chief health officer.
But the Midwest-raised physician simultaneously surmised that the city of then- 225,000 people had a bright future.
"We had lunch at the Fremont (Hotel), under these pink chandeliers," Ravenholt, 70, remembers about his arrival from Kansas. "I assure you, I immediately realized this was different from Topeka."
The soft-spoken doctor, whose mannerisms and appearance have an uncanny resemblance to that of actor Hal Holbrook, is retiring in May. Dr. Donald Kwalick, who has worked with Ravenholt during the last year and was the health officer in Tampa, Fla., for 11 years, will become the new chief health officer.
Ravenholt had been recruited from the Topeka/Shawnee County Health Department, where he served as health officer from 1960-63. He heard about the Clark County Health District position from a colleague in Phoenix, and decided it wouldn't hurt to check it out.
The district was attempting to unify the municipalities in Southern Nevada when Ravenholt arrived. The Health District building, at 625 Shadow Lane, was being built, so board members met in a small Nellis Air Force military building on the current site of the Las Vegas bus station.
The building -- appropriately called the Military Prophylactic Station because they passed out prophylactics and treated soldiers for infectious diseases -- was cramped but served its purpose.
Then Henderson Mayor Bill Byrne was the lone holdout to granting the Clark County Health District authority in Southern Nevada. Byrne had his own sanitarium and health officer in Henderson, Ravenholt says, and he was determined to take care of things himself.
"The trigger was a salmonella outbreak at the Swanky Club (on Boulder Highway)," Ravenholt recalls, brandishing a slight grin. "Bill Byrne took the position that nothing had happened, but he couldn't explain how a couple dozen people got sick from a turkey dinner. The state started putting pressure on him to become a member (of the Health District), and he finally decided to join."
Ravenholt's next fight was with the coroner, Jeff Cornish. At the time, the coroner didn't have an office, so he kept files of the deceased in the trunk of his Cadillac.
"It was a matter of whether the relatives could catch up with the coroner to get their loved ones' records," he says. "Cornish would take the bodies to a mortuary and then leave."
Ravenholt talked the board into appointing him coroner, but then had a slight problem getting the records from Cornish. "He wouldn't turn them over," he remembers. "He said the records were his personal property." With some gentle arm-twisting, the board was able to convince Cornish otherwise.
Ravenholt was determined to have a site where people could review death certificates and fill out the necessary paperwork to take possession of a body. When the Health District was built on Shadow Lane in 1963, the doctor immediately set up a small area as the coroner's office.
Eventually, the county obtained an old church, at 1704 Pinto Lane, and turned that building into a permanent coroner's office. As coroner, Ravenholt also initiated the policy of having a public inquest every time a law enforcement officer causes a death, required to take place within two weeks.
Ravenholt remained as coroner until 1991, when Chief Deputy Ron Flud took over.
"Otto brought our health department into the 20th century," Chuck Deaner, former chairman of the Health District Board, says. "He was also very good at explaining complicated medical procedures, and he was a good teacher."
In 1967, Gov. Paul Laxalt asked Ravenholt to take over as director of the Nevada Department of Health and Human Services. He accepted for what he says was a very personal reason.
"Nevada had no out-patient facilities for the mentally ill," Ravenholt says. "I wanted to modify the rules at the Sparks Mental Hospital and move mental illness treatment from in-patient to out-patient."
His father had voluntarily committed himself to a Wisconsin mental facility and Ravenholt's childhood memories of him being institutionalized were devastating.
"We changed significantly the state mental hospital when I was there," Ravenholt says proudly. "We changed it to more of mental treatment than confinement."
In 1970, the outspoken 43-year-old Ravenholt decided to try his hand at politics and attempted to unseat nine-term incumbent Rep. Walter Baring, D-Nev.
Coming from a family of politicians -- one brother was an assistant to congressman Hubert Humphrey and another was involved in local Minnesota politics -- Ravenholt felt obligated to serve his newfound state. The doctor ran on a ticket of opposing the Vietnam War and addressing the problem of environmental pollution, problems with education and the economy.
"Jim Bilbray jumped in ahead of time," Ravenholt says, looking back on his loss. "He had a lot of resources. Losing a political race was an education."
Briefly, he toyed with the idea of running for governor, but suppressed those notions when a young former teacher by the name of Mike O'Callaghan threw his hat into the race.
"Mike O'Callaghan ran for governor that year and that was a good choice," Ravenholt says. "I couldn't have done any better." O'Callaghan went on to become one of Nevada's most popular two-term governors, and is now the SUN's executive editor.
After his loss to Bilbray, Ravenholt never entered the political arena again.
But duty called again in January 1973. Clark County commissioners were unhappy with the way Southern Nevada Memorial Hospital (now University Medical Center) was being run. Valley and Desert Springs hospitals' nursing facilities had converted to acute care hospitals, and Sunrise Hospital had entered the market.
"My job was to keep the place functioning in the face of this fierce competition," Ravenholt says of his job as acting administrator of Southern Nevada Memorial/UMC. "I also wanted to see if we could improve the physical appearance of the facility."
Ravenholt remained on that job until July 1995.
Pat Shalmy, former Clark County manager, praises Ravenholt as "one of the nicest men I have ever known, and one of the most brilliant. He has a style that's very engulfing. He's someone who could take a very complicated issue and break it down for you."
Shalmy says Ravenholt was instrumental in improving patient-flow and emergency room problems at the hospital. He also assisted in recruiting a new administrator.
"Otto approaches the administration of public health like a physician approaching (hospital) rounds," David Rowles, director of administrative services at the Health District, says. He's worked with Ravenholt for 18 years.
"He has a sensitivity to the citizens of Clark County. He cares for people and their needs. There was a time when he would go to St. Vincent's (shelter), take a nurse and be the only doctor caring for the homeless -- for free. He's a very people-orientated person."
After Ravenholt retires, he plans to tour Europe for a month with his wife, Barbara. When he returns, he says he'll remain active in the medical field as a consultant.
"I enjoy the diversity of people in Las Vegas," he says of his three decades as a Nevadan. "In Topeka, there were two country clubs -- and you just joined one and conformed. In Las Vegas, there has always been a willingness to accept new people.
"You should learn to enjoy some of the color here, rather than just be distressed about it."
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