Longtime Salvation Army spokesman Dodge dies at 70

Monday, Feb. 18, 2002 | 9:34 a.m.

Longtime Clark County Salvation Army spokesman Sumner Dodge had distinctive public and private sides -- and from both views a good man could be seen.

The public Sumner Dodge was a soft-spoken public relations man, who posed many times for news cameras inside the charitable organization's near-empty food pantry, encouraging a community effort to restock the shelves.

The private Sumner Dodge every Friday night for eight years, with no fanfare, served as prayer leader during Salvation Army services for the homeless, often listening for hours to their hardships, providing counseling and taking steps to help them.

Sumner Duncan Dodge died Wednesday of an apparent heart attack at his home. He was 70.

Services will be 11 a.m. Wednesday at Palm Mortuary-Downtown. Visitation will be 9-11 a.m. Wednesday at Palm. Graveside services will follow at Southern Nevada Veterans Memorial Cemetery.

"He was my right-hand man," longtime Clark County Salvation Army commander Lt. Col. Jim Sullivan said. "He did everything from run projects to speak to the news media to pass the collection plate at services.

"Sumner did so much that many people in the community thought he was the head of the Salvation Army. I didn't mind that. He knew his job. He knew my job. And he got the job done."

Dodge spent 24 years with the Salvation Army -- the last 12 in Las Vegas. He was popular with the news media because of his forthrightness. While many so-called spin doctors try to make a bad situation look good, Dodge opted for the direct approach -- if things were rotten, he would say so.

"I always trusted that he knew what he was doing, and sure enough, by being honest, he turned something negative into something positive," Sullivan said. "Of course, he also relied a lot on prayer. When things were their darkest, he'd pray and, sure enough, help would come."

On more than one occasion, Dodge worked late on Christmas Eve, seeking toys for poor children. He'd contact major resorts and others to get last-minute gifts so that every needy child who had signed up got something.

Dodge, who as a hobby kept statistics on a number of issues, began in the early 1990s working with Salvation Army numbers and discovered homelessness was sharply on the rise locally.

At first those numbers were met with skepticism by city and county officials. Later studies by UNLV and the Southern Nevada Homeless Coalition supported not only Dodge's early findings, but also one of his favorite sayings: "The one thing we never seem to run out of at the Salvation Army is people in need."

Born July 14, 1931, in Chicago, Dodge was an Army veteran of the Korean War.

He worked for years as a Social Security employee, but in 1978, frustrated with his inability to effectively help people, Dodge answered a newspaper ad for public relations director for the Salvation Army in Phoenix. He worked there until Sullivan hired him to the post in Las Vegas in 1990.

Dodge worked for the local agency during its period of greatest growth. The organization had a $1 million annual budget when Dodge arrived and a $9 million budget when he retired in February 2001.

Dodge, with wife Nancy at his side, worked on average 60 hours a week. He coordinated about 850 food drives in 10 years, collecting about 3.5 million food items, and he recruited hundreds of bell-ringers for the traditional Christmas kettle drives.

Despite his busy schedule, Dodge also found time to be a Boy Scout leader.

In addition to his wife, Dodge is survived by a brother, Richard Dodge of Glendale, Ariz.

The family requests donations in Dodge's memory to the Salvation Army. Sullivan said money raised from those gifts will be used to buy an organ for the Salvation Army's new chapel and a plaque to honor Dodge's contributions.