Gov. Mike touched people from all walks of life

Kirsten Searer

Friday, March 12, 2004 | 11:17 a.m.

Some wore suits fit for the halls of the Legislature or Congress.

Others dressed in jeans and faded shirts.

It was clear Thursday at Mike O'Callaghan's funeral that the former Nevada governor and Las Vegas Sun executive appealed to all types of people, from dignitaries and state leaders to Korean War veterans and homeless people.

"A lot of people whose names we do not know and whose faces we can't recognize are coming here today," said Richard Bryan, former governor and U.S. senator.

It was an amazing turnout for a governor who hasn't been in office since 1979, Bryan said.

The funeral Mass at the Shrine of the Most Holy Redeemer near the southern end of the Strip was filled with mourners in a church that holds 2,200 people.

The crowds started lining up more than an hour before the service Thursday so they could get a good seat and pay their respects, and more than an hour into the service a few people were still arriving, including a Chinese businessman who had flown in from Hong Kong.

Many people in the crowd had admired O'Callaghan for decades.

Scherrie Adams, a 48-year-old Las Vegas resident, first met O'Callaghan in July 1973, when she was a high school senior who went to lunch at the governor's mansion as part of the Girls' State program.

O'Callaghan must have seen something in her, she said, because he told her he would help her at any time.

She took him up on that years later, when she started her own nonprofit with O'Callaghan's counsel. Over the decades, whenever they ran into each other, he always remembered her.

"Of course you always say, 'I know you don't remember me,' " Adams said. "But he said, 'I remember you.' "

Ed Philley, who served in the Korean War, stood with red eyes in the entry of the church before the service. He said he knew O'Callaghan in Korea and, later, when Philley owned a gas station in Carson City.

"To us guys on the line, he was like a John Wayne," the 74-year-old Boulder City resident said.

O'Callaghan was awarded a Silver Star, a Bronze Star with V for valor and a Purple Heart in Korea, where he lost a leg in a battle.

When eulogizing her father, O'Callaghan's daughter Teresa Duke said he taught his children that all of the people they come across in the world are "God's children."

"Everyone mattered," she said.

And once he cared about someone, he often kept the person in his life for decades. After the ceremony, many of O'Callaghan's former students at Basic High School gathered together to remember a teacher who kept tabs on them their whole lives.

Small crowds exploded in laughter as they told O'Callaghan stories. He put one troublesome student in the classroom closet. He gave Monday morning pop quizzes on what was in the newspaper -- including what was in the sports section. He would eat his lunch outside so students could chat him up.

"If we could get him to start talking about Korea, we could buy ourselves an hour," said former student Colleen McGinty.

Linda Foster baby-sat for O'Callaghan's first son, Michael, when she was 16 years old. She once told O'Callaghan that she needed no payment -- she was free on a Friday night and was happy to help one of her favorite teachers.

Soon after, she was called to the school office, where they told her O'Callaghan had made a contribution in her name to the City of Hope hospital for cancer patients.

"I've never forgotten that," she said.

In his memory, she said, she plans to make another contribution to the City of Hope.

O'Callaghan once gave a test to Pat Cassedy's class. As he walked out to go to the school office, he told the students they were on their honor not to cheat.

"He understood human nature so well," Cassedy said. "He knew how to handle us all."

Maybe that's why he was so successful in politics, Cassedy said.

No matter their walk of life, people on Thursday remembered O'Callaghan's kindness.

A 79-year-old man who had been homeless in the 1980s said he remembered O'Callaghan from Catholic Worker breakfast lines, where O'Callaghan volunteered, serving food and coffee to homeless people.

Dressed in jeans and a white T-shirt and leaning on crutches, the man, who gave his name only as Norm, said, "He held my hands more than once."

Cecilia West worked for the Las Vegas Sun as an accountant almost 20 years ago. She had just moved from Philadelphia, and she was struggling to fit into a new city.

O'Callaghan talked to her about seeking out people she could trust and saying "who cares?" about the ones she could not. He helped her forge a new life in a very different world, she said. For much of the time, she didn't even know he had been governor or that he was a respected statesman around the world.

"He just cared about the little guy," West said. "Mike was one of the very few people who made me feel comfortable in the city."