Longtime business, civic leader Harris dies at 88

Monday, June 6, 2005 | 8:27 a.m.

Longtime Las Vegas businesswoman and civic leader Bunny Harris was willing to try almost anything at least once to serve her community, including run for office.

But when she decided to toss her hat into the ring for the Nevada Assembly in 1966, a slew of other political hopefuls in her district had the same idea. In a race for nine seats in reapportioned Assembly District 4, Harris finished 16th in a field of 53 candidates in the Democratic primary that September.

Although she remained active in the Clark County Women's Democratic Club for many years, Harris never again ran for office.

Bunny Harris, a longtime Las Vegas Realtor and driving force behind the Miss Helldorado Rodeo beauty pageant in the 1960s and '70s, died May 30 at a Las Vegas nursing home. She was 88.

Services for the Las Vegas resident of 61 years were to be at 3 p.m. today at Palm Mortuary, 1325 N. Main St.

Harris was a longtime supporter of the diversification of Las Vegas' gaming- and tourism-dominated economy, and made that the platform of her 1966 campaign.

"(I will campaign for) expansion of the Department of Economic Development so that we can do a real job of trying to bring new industry here and create more jobs," Harris told the Sun for a June 14, 1966, story.

Harris long operated her own Las Vegas real estate business after earning her broker's license in 1962.

Born Bunny Longbotham on a ranch in Snyder, Texas, on Nov. 21, 1916, she grew up raising and riding horses. She graduated from high school in Fort Sumner, N.M., and attended Woodbury Business School in Los Angeles, where she met Robert Harris, whom she married in 1938.

The couple moved to Las Vegas in 1944 and long owned and operated Harris Auto Service, where she worked as office manager and bookkeeper. He died in 1967.

Bunny Harris' love of horses and anything Western made her a fixture at local rodeo pageants for three decades. In 1952 she became a member of the Miss Rodeo America pageant committee, and in 1959 she became a member of the Elks Miss Helldorado Rodeo pageant committee, serving several times as chairwoman.

Harris joined the Chamber of Commerce in 1946, the year she helped organize Las Vegas Emblem Club No. 114. She served as its president in 1950 and 10 years later became the first Nevada woman to be elected president of the national Supreme Emblem Club.

In 1950 Harris joined the board of directors of the Las Vegas YMCA and later became the group's first woman president. A member of the board for 30 years, she was a recipient of the organization's Service to Youth award.

Harris also was past president of the Desert Winds Chapter of the American Business Women's Association, which named her Woman of the Year in 1965. She also served as director of the Nevada Heart Association for six years.

Harris is survived by four sisters, Margaret Garey of Dallas, Louise Rogers of Bloomfield, N.M., Barbara Ratcliff of Lubbock, Texas, and Lois Stanaland of Albuquerque, N.M.

The family said donations can be made to the Supreme Emblem Club Scholarship Fund, c/o Barbara Colburn, 10736 Jefferson Blvd., No. 401, Culver City, CA 90230, or to Eastern Star Endowment Fund, 1825 Pocono Court, Sparks, NV 89434.