Popular Sam’s Town keno boss, rape victims’ activist Renfro dies

Thursday, May 28, 1998 | 10:19 a.m.

Six months ago, longtime Sam's Town hotel-casino keno manager Karen Renfro told her friend Kathy Espin that the cancer she had battled for three years had spread to her liver and brain.

"She told me that she refused to feel sorry for herself," Espin said Tuesday. "Karen vowed that she would make the best of the time she had left. And she did."

An avid fisherman, Renfro went out on a boat as a guest of one of the Corporate Challenge teams during the recent fishing competition. Not only did she catch the first fish of the day, she also caught the biggest.

Earlier this month, Renfro spent a relaxing day at Cottonwood Cove on Lake Mead, reeling in bass as if she had not a worry in the world. Ten days later, on May 20, Renfro died at her Las Vegas home. She was 52.

"It was remarkable how she was able to not take herself seriously and that she kept her sense of humor through all of her trials and tribulations," Espin, owner of a local public relations company and a former Sam's Town employee, said. "Karen never complained about her pain, and she had such sensitivity for others who were in pain."

Renfro, who also was an activist for the rights of rape victims, will be remembered during a 7:30 p.m. Thursday memorial service at the Sam's Town banquet room. She would have celebrated her 53rd birthday on that day.

A Las Vegas resident on and off for about 38 years, Renfro worked 23 years for Boyd Gaming Corp., starting in 1975 as a keno writer for the California hotel-casino.

"Karen had such a rapport with her customers," Sharon Griffin, director of marketing for Sam's Town and a friend, said. "They would make things at home and bring them in to give to her. She also started (keno) tournaments here."

Renfro came to Sam's Town as one of its original staffers when the Boulder Highway gaming property opened in 1979. Five years later, she was promoted to keno manager.

Also in the 1980s, Renfro served on the board of directors for Community Action Against Rape.

"Karen was very good at raising funds and getting the Legislature to listen to our concerns," Renata Cirri, executive director of Community Action Against Rape, said.

Renfro successfully lobbied for legislation that allowed sexual assault victims to testify at parole hearings.

"Before she became a member of our board, Karen helped out as a volunteer," Cirri said. "After she left the board, she continued to help us by getting Sam's Town to sponsor some of our events. Karen had a spirit for life -- she definitely was not a bystander."

Born Karen West on May 28, 1945, in Wilmington, Del., Renfro was the daughter and granddaughter of native Nevadans.

She spent much of her childhood in Las Vegas, but left during her teens for Meeker, Colo., where she graduated from high school.

Renfro resided for a while in North Carolina before moving to Southern California, where she hit the nightclub circuit as a professional lounge singer.

"Mom loved to sing jazzy, bluesy songs," said Baypoint, Calif., resident Lorina Renfro, one of Karen's two daughters. "She won a number of first place awards at Sam's Town talent shows."

Danine Hearn, Karen's other daughter from Clinton, Tenn., said as youngsters, she and Lorina imitated their mother doing her favorite songs, which included "When Sonny Gets Blue," "Summertime" and "Misty."

Renfro, whose mother Bebe Anderson Hoffman of Las Vegas also was a lounge singer, never performed professionally in Las Vegas. Renfro had other priorities when she moved here in 1971.

One of them was, at age 40, to attend the Community College of Southern Nevada, where she was an honors student in studies that included anthropology and archeology.

In later years, Renfro used that knowledge to travel the country and world in search of interesting artifacts.

"She would go desert trekking and visit ghost towns, where she would find old bottles and arrowheads," Lorina said. "Mom had a lot of fun doing that."

Renfro's travels also took her to Egypt, Mexico and, during her bout with cancer, to the Amazon jungle of Peru where she roughed it along river trails.

Renfro remained employed at Sam's Town to the end, but was on sick leave for the past two months.

"Karen was a very understanding, very caring woman who would be available day and night to help others with their problems," Griffin said. "I visited her when she was in the hospital recently. Despite being ill she was laughing and telling jokes and just being her bubbly self.

"It was unbelievable how she was able to keep her spirits up."

In addition to her mother and daughters, Renfro is survived by two sisters, Gail Layne and Donna Brown, both of Las Vegas, and four granddaughters.