Two with Las Vegas ties win Trumpet Awards

Michelle Swafford

Friday, Feb. 20, 2004 | 11:26 a.m.

The achievements of blacks in America are being showcased and two prominent honorees are important business people and community leaders in Las Vegas.

Dr. Anthony Pollard, a philanthropist and founder of Rainbow Medical Centers in Las Vegas, and Don Barden, owner of Fitzgeralds in Las Vegas, were honored with the prestigious Turner Broadcasting System Inc. 2004 Trumpet Awards.

The 12th annual awards were presented on Jan. 26 in Atlanta and a broadcast of the ceremony will air Saturday at 8:30 p.m. Pacific Standard Time on TBS SuperStation, cable channel 7. Hundreds of people were nominated for making a difference in politics, law, business and entertainment, but only 12 were chosen.

Pollard was nominated for his contributions to at-risk youth through educational programs and an expansion of the Las Vegas Valley's annual Juneteenth celebration, which remembers the Emancipation Proclamation. Pollard expanded Rainbow Medical Centers from one location in North Las Vegas 15 years ago to seven family practice and urgent-care centers around the valley.

Each November, the Anthony L. Pollard Foundation holds a two-day art event to fund five $4,000 scholarships for in-need high school seniors in the Clark County public schools. Pollard created the Academy of African American Studies, an after-school program for at-risk youth at Kit Carson Elementary School. In 2005, he and his wife, Diane, will open Rainbow Dreams Academy, a charter school in west Las Vegas for elementary school-age kids.

"I was tired of seeing children get a certificate of attendance and not a certificate of graduation because they can't pass the equivalency tests in math and science," he said. "We have to be able to have these after-school programs. The only way you're going to make it, and it's not a guarantee, is through the educational process."

Pollard said history is filled with role models and children need to be better educated about their pasts to know where their future could take them.

He said being poor while growing up taught him that education was the only way to change his fate.

The other Las Vegas-affiliated honoree was Barden, who was the first black person to own a Las Vegas casino and to wholly own a national casino company. He is president and chairman of Detroit-based Barden Cos. Inc., which operates Fitzgeralds casinos in Las Vegas, Tunica, Miss., and Black Hawk, Colo.

"I'm overwhelmed," Barden said Thursday in Las Vegas, where he kicked off a second annual anniversary celebration at the Fitzgeralds to coincide with Black History Month.

"This is one of the highest awards one can receive."

Barden, who amassed a fortune in the cable television industry, began his gaming career in 1996 when with the purchase of Majestic Star Casino in Gary, Ind. He purchased the three Fitzgeralds casinos in 2001.

Other award honorees include former South African President Nelson Mandella, actress Angela Bassett, musician and actor Isaac Hayes, singer and actress Della Reese and hip-hop legend Russell Simmons.

Sun reporter Liz Benston contributed to this story.