Veteran education, trial lawyers lobbyist dies

Wednesday, Dec. 15, 1999 | 10:21 a.m.

Morgan, raised in Bridgeport, W.Va., first came to Nevada in 1970 after earning a law degree, playing professional baseball, teaching, serving overseas in the Army and working for the National Education Association in Washington, D.C., and for Florida's education association.

Pitching for the Red Sox farm team in the early 1950s, batters he faced included baseball great Satchel Paige.

From 1970 to 1975, Morgan was head of the Nevada State Education Association. In that role, he pushed successfully for laws protecting teachers' job rights and improving benefits for public employees.

In the process, he won respect as a forthright advocate who felt "an honest exchange would be best for everyone" in the lawmaking process, a family representative said.

Morgan left Nevada to lobby for teachers and for Getty Oil in Oklahoma. He returned in the mid-1980s to head Nevada's Administrative Office of the Courts, and then moved to Georgia where he was a Tobacco Institute advocate until retiring in 1991.

After returning to Nevada in 1992, Morgan's "retirement" included lobbying for the Nevada Trial Lawyers Association in the 1993, 1995, 1997 and 1999 sessions.

Morgan is survived by his wife, Barbara; daughter Kim Morgan, chief deputy legislative counsel; and son Randy Morgan, a doctor in Edmond, Okla.

A memorial is planned in late January.