O’Callaghan family matriarch dies at 68

Monday, Aug. 9, 2004 | 11:07 a.m.

Carolyn O'Callaghan showed graciousness, kindness and charity even to those who were critical of her husband, former two-term Nevada Gov. Mike O'Callaghan.

While serving as governor in the 1970s, Mike O'Callaghan was working in Carson City when he got word that a large group was picketing outside the governor's mansion in opposition to his proposed motorcycle helmet law. But when he got home, the governor didn't find picketers outside the mansion, just dozens of picket signs on the porch and lawn.

Upon entering the kitchen door a bewildered Mike O'Callaghan saw Carolyn and the mansion staff serving coffee, hot chocolate and lunch to the protesters.

"They came all the way from Las Vegas and it's cold outside," First Lady Carolyn O'Callaghan explained to her husband, who responded with a broad smile.

Carolyn Randall O'Callaghan died Saturday from apparent complications of heart surgery at Sunrise Hospital slightly more than five months after Mike O'Callaghan died. She was 68.

Services will be at 10:30 a.m. Thursday at St. Viator Catholic Church. Graveside services will be at 1:20 p.m. at the Southern Nevada Veterans Cemetery in Boulder City. Visitation will be from 2 to 7 p.m. Wednesday followed by a rosary at Palm Mortuary Eastern.

"She died of a broken heart," said U.S. Sen. Harry Reid, D. Nev., a longtime friend. "She was an important part of my life. But I am not grieving for her as I did for Mike because I believe Carolyn and Mike are together now."

Reid, who served as lieutenant governor under Mike O'Callaghan, met Carolyn when he was 16 years old. He met his mentor, Mike, as a student when the future governor was a teacher at Basic High School in Henderson.

Reid recalled being served meals by Carolyn in the O'Callaghan home at that time, and being served meals in her home as recently as six months ago, specifically one of Carolyn's specialities, salmon.

"She got involved in state activities, including helping hospitals and the homeless," Reid said. "She set a pattern for other first ladies to follow."

Las Vegas Sun Editor and President Brian Greenspun, a longtime friend, said Carolyn O'Callaghan's gentle touch extended far and wide.

"Whether it was Carolyn's husband, her children, her parents or the broader Nevada family, there was no one in this state more consumed with doing good for other people than Carolyn O'Callaghan," he said.

"There was never not enough place settings, not enough food or not enough love for a stranger in Carolyn's house. She taught all of us how to be better people. We will miss her, but we know she is where she belongs."

Gov. Kenny Guinn called Carolyn O'Callaghan "a wonderful first lady, wife, mother and grandmother. This is especially somber news coming so soon after we lost her husband, Mike."

Former Assembly Speaker Joe Dini, D-Yerington, called Carolyn a "very gracious first lady."

He said she was "an outstanding mother and a real asset for the state."

Mary Hausch, associate professor of journalism at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, who was a Las Vegas reporter covering the Legislature during the O'Callaghan administration, called Carolyn O'Callaghan "an extremely gracious and charming woman."

She noted that prison inmates worked around the mansion during their time there.

"The O'Callaghans wanted to give people a second chance," Hausch said.

Hausch interviewed a number of those inmates for a feature story and recalled how they admired Carolyn O'Callaghan because she treated them with kindness and respect.

"Carolyn was a completely unpretentious person who was very good-natured," Hausch said.

After Mike O'Callaghan left office in 1979, the couple bought a house in Las Vegas. Carolyn drove the moving truck from Carson City to Southern Nevada.

The couple became co-publishers of the Henderson Home News and Boulder City News. For 25 years until his death on March 5, Mike O'Callaghan served as chairman and executive editor of the Sun.

Carolyn O'Callaghan was president of HBC Publications, parent company of the two newspapers, at the time of her death.

Both O'Callaghans had bouts with cancer in 2000.

Carolyn was hospitalized Aug. 2 after suffering a dissected aorta. She was transported from her home to Sunrise Hospital where she underwent eight hours of surgery, receiving an artificial replacement in the upper aorta.

Carolyn last month went to Carson City to attend the funeral of her brother, Richard Randall. He died the night his son -- her nephew -- Brian Randall and his family lost their home in the Carson City fire.

Being a supportive family matriarch and a compassionate force to others was what Carolyn O'Callaghan was all about, her family said.

"She was a class lady," said son Michael O'Callaghan, a Clark County chief deputy district attorney who admired his mother for giving convicts a chance to redeem themselves in jobs at the governor's mansion.

"My mother saw the good in people and was especially concerned for those who were convicted of charges they most likely would not repeat. She always could see the good side of a bad situation."

Tim O'Callaghan, co-publisher of the Henderson Home News who spent much of his youth in the governor's mansion, remembered how his mom would get up early in the morning, put on a pot of coffee and sit at the kitchen table with the mailman, milkman, cleaner and others, discussing issues of the day.

"She always considered the governor's mansion to be the people's house," Tim O'Callaghan said. "Every Halloween we spooked up the mansion and made hundreds of bags of popcorn to give to the trick-or-treaters.

"My mother could on one day be preparing for a dinner with kings and presidents and on another day be preparing to feed the homeless."

Michael O'Callaghan said his mother also was an outgoing woman "who knew how to party. And she had the energy to carry on the sophistication that the governor's mansion needed."

Both Tim and Michael recalled how Carolyn played a major role in the family's earliest days of operating the Henderson and Boulder City newspapers.

"My mom was instrumental early on in developing advertisers and generating circulation," Michael said, noting that Carolyn was even more instrumental in shaping his father's future.

"They discussed everything," he said. "(In 1956) Dad had an opportunity to be a principal (in Idaho) or take a job teaching at Basic High School. She suggested he take the job at Basic."

She was born Carolyn Randall on Dec. 15, 1935, in Twin Falls, Idaho. Her parents were florists Claude and Marjorie Randall. As a youngster, Carolyn spent many hours playing in the greenhouses behind the family's flower shop.

"Carolyn was a tomboy who loved to ride stick horses in the fields," said Harriett Martinez of Las Vegas, one of Carolyn's sisters. "She was a natural mom who on her own as a teenager took on the responsibility of looking after me. She took me everywhere with her.

"Throughout her life she quietly took charge. When Mike died she took on the role of comforting others to make sure they were OK. She was just a beautiful soul."

After graduating from high school in Twin Falls, Carolyn went to the University of Idaho at Moscow, where she met Mike. They were married Aug. 25, 1954.

Carolyn O'Callaghan was an excellent athlete in the 1950s and '60s, winning numerous bowling tournaments and pro-am golf championships. She had a six handicap, her family said, noting that Mike at one time encouraged her to consider trying out for the Ladies Professional Golf Association tour.

However, Carolyn's athletic career came to an abrupt end in the mid-1960s when she slipped on ice while carrying two bags of groceries along a Carson City street, suffering a back injury that required several operations over a nine-month period, her family said.

In the late 1960s, Carolyn worked as a school bus driver and later as a music and guitar teacher at Greco's House of Music in Carson City. She also was a collector of fine guitars.

At the Home News, Carolyn not only sold ads and did promotions to boost circulation, but also did backshop cut-and-paste production work to get the paper ready for the presses.

She was working in that capacity on May 4, 1988, when the Pacific Engineering facility -- Pepcon -- blew up, rocking most of Henderson.

"It was organized chaos," Carolyn said in a 1998 interview. "Ten years ago we still did everything by hand. I was leaning over a page doing one of any number of items that seemed unimportant ... when the first one of two booms hit. Dust flew and it felt like the roof lifted and dropped."

Carolyn recalled that she and the rest of the staff of the weekly paper were quick to respond to a rare major breaking story on their Wednesday deadline, giving them an opportunity to compete head to head up with the larger dailies.

"I ran to the front of the building out on Water Street for a better view," Carolyn recalled. "I cleared the corner of the building ... just in time to see a massive explosion belching and rolling up like a mushroom, lavender orange and blue in the center, then spreading out at the base."

"I could literally see the sound waves coming. ... It hit my body like a blast of wind, sound and sand. ... My eardrums hurt like they were being pierced, followed by the sound of breaking glass, squeaking and groaning sounds, a dull roar and then silence."

"BOOM" read the headline in that Thursday's edition of the Home News.

Carolyn O'Callaghan stepped down two years ago from her post as co-publisher. The newspapers were taken over by two of her children, Tim O'Callaghan and Colleen O'Callaghan-Miele.

Although Mike's death was very tough on Carolyn, her family said she hid much of her despair from the public and tried to carry on as normal.

"She was a lonely person in a crowd," daughter Teresa Duke said. "But she found solace in her grandchildren. Just three weeks ago she took the kids fishing at Lake Mead. It was a great relief from all of her stress."

In addition to sons Michael and Tim, daughters Colleen and Teresa, and her sister Harriett, Carolyn O'Callaghan is survived by another son, Brian O'Callaghan; another sister, Barbara Kingsbury of Boise, Idaho; and 15 grandchildren.

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