Cannon services Monday

Friday, March 8, 2002 | 9:04 a.m.

Sen. Harry Reid and former Sen. Richard Bryan will be among the many political figures and other civic leaders attending a memorial service Monday for former Sen. Howard W. Cannon.

The service is scheduled at 10 a.m. at Palm Mortuary, 7600 S. Eastern Ave., for the four-term Democratic senator who died Wednesday. Visitation will be 5 to 7 p.m. Sunday at Palm.

Cannon will be buried during a private ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery later this month, his daughter Nancy Downey, said.

Cannon, who served Nevada in the Senate from 1959 to 1983, died at Odyssey Health Care hospice of congestive heart failure. He was 90.

A highly decorated World War II pilot, Cannon became Las Vegas city attorney after the war, where he served until his election to the Senate.

As the second ranking member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, he was "so personally committed to maintaining American military superiority that he test flew all new aircraft before voting for money to develop them," Reid said. He also rose to chairman of the Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee.

He spearheaded projects to bring water from Lake Mead to the Las Vegas Valley and was a strong advocate for Nellis Air Force Base.

A full military honor guard from Nellis will be present at Monday's services.

Deputy Public Defender Douglas Hedger, a nephew of Cannon and a local bishop in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, will deliver the eulogy.

The service will end with "America the Beautiful," Downey said. "My dad loved all of the patriotic songs."

In addition to Downey, Cannon is survived by his wife, Dorothy, and son, Alan Howard, both of Las Vegas, and sister, Evelyn Jay, of St. George, Utah.

The family requests donations in the senator's name be made to the Cannon Center for Survey Research at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, or the Alzheimers Association, Southern Nevada chapter.