Opportunity Village inspiration Bailey dies

Tuesday, Dec. 19, 2000 | 10:30 a.m.

Claudia Bailey, a mentally retarded woman who inspired her mother to fight to change state education laws and co-found Opportunity Village, has died in Bremerton, Wash. She was 53.

Bailey, a native Las Vegan, died of pneumonia on Dec. 12 at Bremerton Health and Rehabilitation Center, her family said. She was the daughter of Dessie Bailey, who with her late husband Elbert struggled to give Claudia as normal a life as possible against the advice of experts who had recommended she be put into an institution.

Dessie Bailey, who has a meeting room named after her at the Walters Family Campus of Opportunity Village at Lake Mead Drive and Burkholder Boulevard in Henderson, died last year at 81. Elbert died in 1993.

"Claudia was just so friendly and lovable -- she definitely was an inspiration," said longtime Las Vegas insurance agent Mike Pinjuv, a co-founder of Opportunity Village and the parent of a mentally challenged man.

In the 1950s Dessie and Claudia appeared before the Nevada Legislature, where Dessie delivered passionate testimony, imploring lawmakers to guarantee the rights of the mentally retarded -- those with IQs of 70 or less -- to be educated in Nevada.

She asked state legislators to explain to Claudia why she was not allowed to go to school. Laws were changed and, by the mid-1960s, the Clark County School District began providing education for mentally retarded kindergarten through 12th graders.

Claudia was born July 5, 1947, and was diagnosed with what later came to be known as Down syndrome.

In 1953 the Baileys obtained a donated concrete-block building in North Las Vegas and opened a thrift shop to raise money for retarded children. A year later Dessie co-founded the Clark County Association for Retarded Children -- today called the Clark County Association for Retarded Citizens.

The Baileys joined with Pinjuv, Jesma Wilcox and Joylin Vandenberg to found Opportunity Village, where Claudia was trained.

The Opportunity Village main campus, at 6300 W. Oakey Blvd., has trained thousands of mentally retarded people valleywide at a range of entry-level jobs and has become a model for mentally retarded assistance organizations nationwide.

Claudia is survived by a brother, Pat Bailey of Bremerton.

Burial will be in Memory Gardens, 7251 W. Lone Mountain Road. The family suggests donations in Claudia Bailey's memory to Opportunity Village, 10 Coolidge Ave., Las Vegas, NV 89101.