Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

Former first lady Sawyer dies

Bette Sawyer wasn't much for the political games that the wife of a candidate had to play.

She supported her husband, Grant Sawyer, in his successful runs for governor in 1958 and 1962, but "was always uncomfortable with the superficiality and artificiality of the political game," Grant Sawyer said in his autobiography, "Hang Tough."

When Sen.Alan Bible decided to retire in 1974, presenting an opportunity for Sawyer to run for the Senate, the former governor noted his wife was quoted as saying "If he files, I'll file."

Bette Norene Hoge Sawyer, who her husband called his pillar of strength, loyalty and restraint, died Wednesday morning in her home. She was 79. Grant Sawyer died in 1996.

"She was a quiet woman -- opinionated though," Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., said. "That was the reason I liked her. She was no shrinking violet."

Reid laughed when asked to share a personal story about her.

"I know lots of stories, but I won't tell you any of them," Reid said. "She had a very tart tongue. She would tell you what she thought of an individual."

Other friends remembered Sawyer as someone who stood behind her husband and put the raising of their only daughter, Gail, above all else.

"Bette was a great wife and devoted mother and a true and loyal friend," said attorney Ralph Denton, Grant Sawyer's former campaign director and friend of more than 50 years.

When Gail attended grammar school in Carson City and the family was living in the Governor's Mansion, Denton said, Bette Sawyer would always be home at noon so the two could have lunch.

"If she had some some big political function, if she had to skip it she would do so," Denton said. "She was always there when Gail was growing up."

Sawyer was born in Baker, Ore., on May 22, 1923. She graduated from Baker High School and attended the University of Oregon.

In 1945 she moved to Reno with her parents, where she met her future husband. In his autobiography the governor said the two were set up by his college roommate at a "drunken" fraternity party. She liked to joke to friends that he kept forgetting her name.

They were married in Washington, D.C., the following year while he was attending law school at Georgetown University. Bette Sawyer worked for the National Research Council of the National Academy of Sciences until her husband completed law school.

In 1948 they moved to Elko, where they lived with their daughter until Sawyer was elected governor in 1958.

Sawyer became an opponent of federal efforts to build a nuclear waste dump in Nevada. He served as chairman of the Nevada Commission on Nuclear Projects from 1985 to 1995.

Former Gov. Mike O'Callaghan said Bette Sawyer was loyal to her husband.

"She was a very strong lady and very quietly in her own way did a great deal for the state of Nevada," O'Callaghan said. "She was exceptionally bright and never sought publicity but worked in the background to help him promote his work."

Bette Sawyer never sought the limelight but had strong opinions on the issues surrounding her, said O'Callaghan, executive director of the Las Vegas Sun, who was Sawyer's first director of human resources.

"She wasn't flashy, she was bright, she knew what was going on in the world around her," he said. "If you asked her her opinion on something, it was usually an answer that was solid and to the point. She was exemplary of what a wife and first lady should be."

After Sawyer's second term as governor, they moved from Carson City to Las Vegas, where he co-founded Lionel Sawyer & Collins, the state's largest law firm.

Former Gov. Bob Miller said Bette Sawyer was in a way part of her husband's "kitchen cabinet," acting as a sounding board and giving her opinion on issues.

"She took the role (of first lady) very seriously," he said. "She was involved in issues as well as first lady duties with the mansion.

Bob Faiss, Sawyer's law partner and executive assistant when he was governor, said Bette Sawyer will be best known for being the first in Nevada history to compile the stories and the careers of the wives of Nevada's governors and the role they played in the development of the state.

The photographs she collected now hang in the Governor's Mansion.

Bette Sawyer is survived by one daughter, Gail. Services will be private. The family asks that donations be made to the University of Nevada Medical School or the Grant Sawyer Center for Justice Studies at the University of Nevada, Reno.

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