Death shocks Thomas family

Friday, Jan. 3, 2003 | 9:37 a.m.

After completing his mission to Puebla, Mexico, for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in 1996, Las Vegan David Thomas decided to return there a year later to study and perform community service to help the poor.

Giving to others was something that came naturally to the grandson of E. Parry Thomas, the Las Vegas banking legend who financed the town's lifeblood of hotels for 40 years and whose generosity added 400 acres to the campus of the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.

David Peter Thomas, who was to have graduated from law school at the University of Utah this spring and was slated to one day take over the Thomas & Mack Co., died Thursday of an apparent heart attack in Sun Valley, Idaho, relatives said. He was 28.

Today, his family is lamenting that David's seemingly bright future of raising a family with his wife of eight months, Natalie Thomas of Salt Lake City, and his tremendous potential for helping his community grow, is gone.

Services for the Las Vegas resident of 22 years will be 11 a.m. Monday at the University of Utah's LDS Third Ward Chapel in Salt Lake City. Visitation will be 7-9 p.m. Sunday at Larkin Mortuary. Burial will be at Wasatch Lawn Memorial Park in Salt Lake City.

"Great potential has been lost," said E. Parry Thomas, retired chairman of Valley Bank, who in 1954 became the first banker to invest in gaming properties to fuel expansion of the Strip and later usher in the megaresort era. He is head of the Thomas & Mack Co. development empire.

"He was my oldest grandson and he was being groomed to one day take over the Thomas & Mack Co. He was just a beautiful, all-American kid."

UNLV's Thomas & Mack Center is named for Parry Thomas and late financier Jerry Mack.

"David learned early on that there is no greater satisfaction or joy than to serve a fellow human being," said Tom Thomas, an attorney and David's uncle. "As a member of the Sigma Chi fraternity he did a lot of community service, especially volunteering to help youth organizations and at local hospitals."

Thomas volunteered at hospitals as a Spanish translator, often helping indigent immigrants explain their ailments to physicians so they could get proper medical treatment, his family said.

"He was a Renaissance man, being accomplished in art, song-writing, guitar, and as an athlete in skiing, golf and basketball," said Thomas' mother, Natalie Thomas. "But David's greatest qualities were the deeper ones of high moral character, a caring heart and an engaging sense of humor."

After his freshman year of college, Thomas went to Puebla for his two-year church mission.

"He was so taken by the people," Tom Thomas said. "And because of his concern for them, David went back and wound up with co-majors in finance and Spanish literature."

An autopsy is scheduled in Boise, Idaho, today to give the family some answers as to why a young, athletic man, who spent all day Wednesday skiing the slopes of Sun Valley, died so suddenly and without a history of heart problems.

On Wednesday night, while playing pool with family members at his parents' vacation home, where he was staying for the holidays, Thomas briefly rubbed his chest, saying he felt his heart was beating a little slow. But he showed no signs of having serious coronary problems, his family said.

Early Thursday, Natalie awoke to find David breathing irregularly, the family said. Thomas' sister, Megan Thomas, and her boyfriend, Chris Gottsagen, both medical students, started applying cardio-pulmonary resuscitation prior to the arrival of paramedics.

Thomas was pronounced dead on arrival at St. Luke's Hospital, Tom Thomas said.

Born Nov. 25, 1974, in Fairfax, Va., Thomas was 6 years old when his family returned to Las Vegas. He attended Bishop Gorman High School where he appeared in school plays, sang in concerts and graduated as class valedictorian.

Thomas graduated from the University of Utah in 1999 and spent his first year of law school at UNLV. He transferred to Utah a year later to attend school with his fiancee, his family said. He served as an intern for Utah Supreme Court Justice Michael Wilkins.

But Thomas kept close ties to Las Vegas, working last summer as a clerk for the Jones Vargas law firm. He had planned to take the Nevada bar exam in August, Tom Thomas said.

Thomas recently won the University of Utah's moot court competition, where his litigation skills earned him a spot in the national finals in New York, which are scheduled for later this month.

In addition to his wife, mother, sister and grandfather, Thomas is survived by his father, Peter Thomas of Las Vegas; a brother, Adam Thomas of Washington University in St. Louis; a sister, Lindsey Thomas of Salt Lake City; a paternal grandmother, Peggy Thomas of Sun Valley; and maternal grandparents, Shirley and Monroe Paxman of Provo Utah.

The family said donations can be made in David Thomas' memory to the Thomas and Mack Legal Clinic at UNLV or the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation.