O’Callaghans are honored by lawmakers

Kirsten Searer

Friday, May 6, 2005 | 11:07 a.m.

CARSON CITY -- Many legislators remember "Gov. Mike" for the 5 a.m. phone calls he placed when he wanted to set someone straight on an issue.

"He just felt if he was awake and thinking about it, you should be awake and thinking about it," said Senate Majority Leader Bill Raggio, R-Reno.

But they said former Gov. Mike O'Callaghan was just as quick to offer a word of support as he was to give his opinion.

"His right hand was ready for a handshake and his left ready for a left hook," said Senate Minority Leader Dina Titus, D-Las Vegas. "That was Mike O'Callaghan."

Legislators took almost two hours Thursday to honor O'Callaghan and his wife, Carolyn, who both died last year.

Donal "Mike" O'Callaghan died in March 5, 2004. He was 74 years old. Carolyn Randall O'Callaghan died Aug. 7, 2004. She was 68.

A Democrat, Mike O'Callaghan ran for governor in 1970, winning the first of two terms. He revamped state government and became one of the state's most popular chief executives. After he left public office, he became executive editor of the Sun. During the legislative tribute, many lawmakers said the former governor inspired them to run for office.

Assembly Majority Leader Barbara Buckley, D-Las Vegas, said Mike O'Callaghan entered politics because he cared about people, and she strives to do the same.

"Every person he met, every person he touched, he cared about," she said. "Whether it's calling a colleague to pat them on the back when they're down, whether it was helping a waitress at the restaurant, it didn't matter who had a problem, Gov. Mike was there to solve it."

Senate Majority Leader Bill Raggio, R-Reno, remembers how he and Mike O'Callaghan started out as an ardent Republican and an ardent Democrat.

But Raggio said that grew into a relationship of mutual respect and friendship.

Everyone had a different story about Mike O'Callaghan, from his desk piled high with papers to the way he sized up new people.

Assemblywoman Chris Giunchigliani, D-Las Vegas, said she first met Mike O'Callaghan when she was heading the teachers union. After, he said, "I don't know how she's going to do but at least she ain't no sissy."

The resolution honoring Carolyn O'Callaghan remembered when she was first lady, and Mike O'Callaghan heard that bikers were going to picket a motorcycle helmet law at the governor's mansion.

"But on arriving to evaluate the situation," the resolution says, "he discovered only dozens of picket signs on the porch and lawn because Carolyn, explaining that those people had come all the way from Las Vegas and it was cold outside, had everyone in the kitchen being served coffee, hot chocolate and lunch."

Carolyn O'Callaghan always said that when she lived in the governor's mansion it wasn't her house, it was "the house of the people."

She was known for helping where ever there was a need and opened her house, and the governor's mansion, to all.

After leaving Carson City, she became co-publisher with her husband of the Henderson Home News and the Boulder City News. One of the O'Callaghan's sons, Michael, said he hears a variety of stories about his dad.

"Nobody has a total picture of my father," he said. "He had an individual relationship with every person he met."

Only God and Carolyn O'Callaghan truly knew him, Michael O'Callaghan said.

Michael O'Callaghan did have advice for legislators looking to spend the state surplus. He said he had spoken to his parents just weeks before his father's death about how the state should invest its money.

He said they wanted to put money in homes that keep foster siblings together and reinvest in physical education in schools. Mike O'Callaghan believed that a person could work toward a healthy spirit if they had a health body, Michael O'Callaghan said.

"These would be his suggestions," Michael O'Callaghan said.