Saturday, July 1, 2000 | 2:30 a.m.
Gov. Mike
Before becoming a newspaperman, then-Gov. Mike O'Callaghan set standards that future state leaders will have difficulty meeting. Here are just some of the many things he was credited with accomplishing during his two terms:
Construction of the Children's Behavioral Services Center, the Desert Developmental Center, the Jean Hanna Clark rehabilitation center for workers injured on the job, several cottages for the now-defunct Southern Nevada Children's Home in Boulder City and a new medium security prison in Jean.
Construction of the Lakes Crossing facility for mentally ill offenders in Sparks and a new maximum security prison in Carson City.
Greatly increasing the allocation of funds for community colleges, which resulted in the growth of the Community College of Southern Nevada, instituting the first successful drug education program and significantly increasing funding for special education in grade schools.
Creation of the Environmental Commission, Consumer Affairs office, the Division of Aging Services, the State Energy Department and the Housing Division.
Passage of the landlord-tenant bill, the state's first open-housing legislation, the motorcycle helmet law and a strong open meeting law.
Significantly increasing the number of women, minorities and disabled employees and supervisors in state government and on boards and commissions.
Funding of the "To Conduct the Public Business" study that resulted in the elimination of five dozen boards and commissions and no new taxes or tax increases.
Mike O'Callaghan's influence -- including the many lives he has touched and helped turn around -- is widespread.
While at a hospital being treated for a nasty laceration on his leg resulting from an accident at a parade, Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., was asked by the doctor: "Do you know Mike O'Callaghan?"
Reid, who had O'Callaghan as his government teacher at Basic High School, who served with Gov. O'Callaghan as lieutenant governor, and who has been following with great interest O'Callaghan's 20 years as chairman of the board and executive editor of the Sun, acknowledged that he indeed knew him.
The doctor then told a story about how years ago a group of high school boys were speeding and got into a terrible accident -- so bad, one of the teens lost a leg. The doctor said then-Gov. O'Callaghan, who had lost a leg during the Korean War, paid a visit to the hospital to cheer up the depressed young man.
O'Callaghan showed the boy his prosthetic limb and said: "This never stopped me from doing anything I wanted in life. Don't let it stop you from pursuing your dreams."
Reid told the doctor that O'Callaghan has made many such visits to amputees and shared words of encouragement and still does.
"I'm glad he said those words, because they encouraged me to become a doctor," the physician said, tapping his artificial leg as he stitched up the senator.
Advice from Hank
O'Callaghan has worked many jobs, including rancher, ironworker, boxer, boxing trainer, railroad worker, soldier, probation officer, state director of Health and Welfare and federal job corps official.
"The one big rap against me was that I was never able to hold down a job for very long," O'Callaghan said. "The years I spent as governor and those I have spent at the Sun are the longest at any job I've had.
"But I never had a job I didn't like. My success as a teacher is seen in any of my students you talk to. I felt I made a lot of progress as governor. I feel a lot of satisfaction when I come here to work every day."
The seeds for his future employment with the Sun were planted in 1957, when O'Callaghan first met late Sun Publisher Hank Greenspun. At the time, O'Callaghan was trying to organize fellow teachers.
"Hank came to me and gave me a most important piece of advice -- don't ever strike because it will hurt the children.
"We wound up settling for a lot less than we wanted. But we didn't strike -- we didn't hurt the children. And that was important."
In 1979, after two terms in the Governor's Mansion, O'Callaghan could have written his ticket anywhere. But when Greenspun came to him with a lesser offer -- at least money-wise -- O'Callaghan gladly took it and sealed it with a lasting handshake.
"I had refused to take any job in gaming, I didn't want to go to Washington ..." O'Callaghan said, rattling off several other reasons that narrowed his opportunities. "I had experience writing a sports column for the Henderson Home News and I had written for the Foreign Service Courier. I liked writing and Hank."
At age 49, O'Callaghan became a newspaperman. He believes to this day he made the right career move.
Helping Nicaragua
As a newsman, O'Callaghan has relied on his adventurous experiences to better ply his trade.
He loves politics and writes extensively on that subject. And he holds court in his memorabilia-cluttered Sun office where political leaders call him on a regular basis.
As a historian, O'Callaghan has gone to history-making places on his own or at the request of presidents to lend a hand, often under difficult circumstances.
That meant going to the jungles of Nicaragua in February 1990 to monitor the elections that brought down the Sandinistas' revolutionary government and ushered in democracy to that Third World nation.
Former Rep. Ben Jones, of Georgia, a one-time actor who played Cooter the mechanic on the "Dukes of Hazzard" TV show, accompanied O'Callaghan on that trip. In a March 7, 1990, op-ed piece for the DeKalb (Ga.) News and Sun, Jones wrote:
"O'Callaghan had come prepared. While others talked of policy implications and balloting technicalities, Big Mike pointed to his bag: 'I brought lots of M&Ms,' he said, 'and plenty of baseballs.'
"Gruff and opinionated, O'Callaghan's real persona emerged when he was giving out baseballs and candy in the poorest country in our hemisphere. ...
"He rented a Russian-made Sandinista helicopter, removed its weaponry ... And then, at 180 mph, we made a treetop-level combat run through the northern jungle along the Rio Coco. ...
"Ours was the first government helicopter to land in San Carlos in seven years. The Miskitos (Indians) were elated. As we opened the polling place, the town literally came running to vote. As we lifted off from there, I could see a growing line of voters and a group of youngsters playing baseball O'Callaghan style."
Over the years, O'Callaghan has returned to Nicaragua many times to help the Miskito orphans and others in that struggling Central American nation.
O'Callaghan, who also has gone to Israel to work as a laborer and to Northern Iraq to help the Kurds set up free elections, says: "To understand where we are today, you have to know history. To plan for tomorrow you have to know what is going on today."
Greatest honor
In a 1979 interview, O'Callaghan said that in 100 years, when all of the other names were used up, a building could be named after him. Since that time, a local junior high school and the federal hospital at Nellis Air Force Base have been named for Mike O'Callaghan.
(By the way, his real first name is Donal. He was given the nickname "Mike" as a young prizefighter -- for no particular reason other than it went well with O'Callaghan -- and it just stuck.)
"I turned down the offer several times to have a school named for me until others who I felt were more deserving had schools named for them," O'Callaghan said. "I do not get any special feeling about seeing my name on a building.
"Perhaps the greatest honor I ever received happened thousands of miles from here when the regimental rifle range in Korea was named for me."
O'Callaghan believed as governor -- and still does -- that once prisoners pay their debts to society, companies should hire them and give them a chance to turn around their lives. It's a philosophy that has cost other politicians races after opponents pointed to that way of thinking as a sign that they are soft on crime.
But don't call O'Callaghan a flaming liberal or he'll be quick to point out that he also was the governor who brought the death penalty back to Nevada.
High standards
As a newsman, O'Callaghan's views have not changed much on government since he was in office: "I don't fear government -- I see it as a necessary tool for our society to survive. I see government as being better because of a free press.
"I have found a similarity in government and newspapers. As governor, I couldn't do my job without an excellent staff. The staff at the Sun is an excellent bunch of people."
In his columns, O'Callaghan is tough on politicians who don't meet the high standard of public service that he helped set.
"I never attack individuals -- I take issue with what they do," he said. "I don't see anyone as being really evil. But I see mistakes being made and I write about them."
One issue that O'Callaghan fought tooth and nail was the Nevada Legislature voting itself a 300 percent pension increase several years ago. After much hammering, a special session was held to revoke the measure.
"Today, when people (who would have benefited from it) blame me for the repeal of the 300 percent increase I say thank you," O'Callaghan said. "It is something I felt great joy in doing."
Today he fumes over the 1997 closing of the Southern Nevada Children's Home in Boulder City: "It was short-sighted, insensitive and wrong, and someday those responsible will realize the big mistake they made."
Military service
O'Callaghan served in three military branches -- the Marine Corps as part of the post-World War II occupation forces, the Air Force as an intelligence specialist and as an enlisted man in the Army during the Korean War.
Today he is often asked to speak at military and veterans functions. But his views are not necessarily the same as those of veterans who constantly complain about a lack of benefits and unkept promises from the government.
"I was shot up and if it weren't for the good medical care I got in the military and VA hospital I wouldn't be alive today," he said. "Whether or not the rest of the needs are being met for other veterans groups, I have no complaints about how I was treated."
When O'Callaghan sees what he feels is a legitimate gripe involving veterans, however, he writes passionately about it. "I think the guys with Agent Orange (an illness associated with defoliants used to clear the jungles of Vietnam) got shortchanged, and so did the frostbite victims of World War II and Korea," he says.
Giving credit
O'Callaghan credits a good deal of his success to his wife, Carolyn. Together, they have raised five children and they have 15 grandchildren.
"She is brighter than hell," he said. "I bounce ideas off her all the time because she really knows the issues.
"When I was governor, she ran the mansion. When we left, she drove the furniture truck down here."
As for the future of the Sun, O'Callaghan says: "As long as there are two newspapers in Las Vegas, the Sun will be here to give people a choice. A one-newspaper town is an unhealthy situation."
If he could change one thing at the Sun, O'Callaghan says: "I would find a way to get the Sun in every Southern Nevadan's hands every day for several months -- even for free.
"If people got the paper on such a regular basis I think many of them would continue to buy the Sun and have it delivered to their homes. I think we would triple our circulation."
As for when the 70-year-old O'Callaghan, who also publishes the Henderson Home News and Boulder City News, plans to retire from the newspaper business, he says: "When I'm old enough to enjoy playing golf."
O'Callaghan does not play golf.
A straight shooter
Sen. Reid, in addition to being a longtime friend, is a loyal reader of his mentor's column.
"Mike is a very prophetic writer," Reid said. "He writes about many things that later prove to be true. He writes with a memory that is everlasting. And even though he is a Democrat, he writes very bipartisan on many issues.
"And Mike writes without being mean or cynical. He is not afraid to put a few nice comments in his column. I think that is why people like to read Mike O'Callaghan."
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