Nevada journalism pioneer, humanitarian laid to rest

Friday, Feb. 20, 2004 | 11:37 a.m.

Las Vegas Sun Assistant to the Publisher Ruthe Deskin was a "giant" who "was never a harsh judge of others" Sun Chairman Mike O'Callaghan, a former two-term Nevada governor, said at Deskin's funeral Thursday.

Sun Editor and President Brian Greenspun said, "Thousands of Nevadans' lives were made better because (Deskin) cared."

Few are better examples of people Deskin did not judge harshly than former Sun advertising executive Don Pribble, one of those thousands of Nevadans who benefited from her compassion.

Before Thursday's services at Palm Mortuary Chapel in downtown Las Vegas, attended by about 450 mourners, Pribble signed Deskin's memorial book, adding a short note thanking her and late Sun Publisher Hank Greenspun for their help and for a Las Vegas Sun scholarship.

Pribble, a Rancho High graduate, said being selected by Deskin as the first Las Vegas Sun Scholarship winner in 1958 was his first big break in a roller coaster life haunted by alcoholism. And it wasn't the last helping hand he got from Deskin.

Not long after Deskin gave Don the $2,000 scholarship, alcoholism caused him to drop out after two years at the University of Nevada Reno, the school from which Deskin had graduated in 1937.

Pribble admits to losing several jobs over the years because of booze. Dejected and well-known in the local media industry for his drinking, Pribble went to the Sun offices in the mid-1980s to be interviewed by Deskin for a job selling advertising for the Nellis Air Force Bullseye newspaper, which the Sun at the time was contracted to publish.

"Ruthe would always give people a second chance, and sometimes more," Pribble said after Thursday's services. "That helped save me."

Pribble, a member of Alcoholics Anonymous and former three-time president of the Samaritan House for male alcoholics, has been sober for 26 years.

Pribble made it a point to return to college and in 1989 earned a communications degree from the University of Nevada Las Vegas.

"I felt I owed it to Ruthe and Hank (Greenspun) to get my degree for the big break they gave me early in my life," Pribble said.

Also at Thursday's services, conducted by former Sun columnist, the Rev. Dan Newburn, Deskin's humor was remembered.

Newburn said he once asked Deskin how long she thought a column should be. Deskin replied: "A column is like a woman's skirt. It needs to be long enough to cover the subject but short enough to be interesting."

Such was the homespun wit and down-to-earth wisdom of the girl from the small Northern Nevada mining community of Pizen Switch -- today Yerington -- who grew up to become a Nevada journalism icon.

Deskin worked for 50 years at the Sun, primarily as assistant to the publisher, first under Hank Greenspun and in recent years for his widow, Publisher Barbara Greenspun, who, though recovering from recent surgery, attended the services.

Deskin's Memo To Hank and Back and Forth columns over six decades championed the rights of abused and neglected children and many other community programs and causes. She was an inaugural inductee to the Nevada State Press Association's Newspaper Hall of Fame in 1998.

And a Las Vegas elementary school and the activities center at Child Haven, which she co-founded, are named for her.

Ruthe Deskin Elementary School Assistant Principal Dorothy Martinez and first-grade teacher Donna Mack, a native Las Vegan, represented the school at Thursday's services. They gave a check from the school to the Sun Camp Fund, a program for disadvantaged youths that was co-founded by Deskin.

"While many of the children did not know her personally they felt strong ties to Ruthe Deskin, attending the school named for her," Martinez said after the services. "She will continue to have an impact on students for years to come. She left a wonderful legacy."

Mack, a 1981 graduate of Western High, who attended the Sun Youth Forum, a sounding board for high school students co-founded by Deskin in 1956, said her students made cards remembering "a fine lady who taught people about values."

Officials of the school at 4550 N. Pioneer Way near West Craig Road and North Buffalo Drive plan to plant a tree in Deskin's memory on the campus in the spring and place a plaque honoring Deskin at the site.

Deskin died Saturday at her home after a lengthy struggle with heart complications. She would have been 88 today.

She was entombed Thursday in a mausoleum crypt beside her husband Jim Deskin at Palm Memorial Park.

Deskin's family said donations in the memory of Ruthe Viola Deskin can be made to the UNLV Foundation with the notation on the checks for the Ruthe Deskin Memorial Scholarship Fund. The address is Box 451006, 4505 Maryland Parkway, Las Vegas, NV 89154.