Rittendale, veteran teacher, former Sun society columnist, dies

Tuesday, Sept. 6, 2005 | 8:55 a.m.

By day, Marguerite Rittendale was a dedicated teacher at Kermit R. Booker Elementary School and at other educational centers during a career that spanned four decades.

At nights, she hit the society soirees, gourmet restaurants and Strip showrooms, hobnobbing with the community's elite and celebrities and gathering items for her RSVP column that ran in the Las Vegas Sun's Sunday editions during late 1970s and early '80s.

"My mother considered herself an educator, but writing was her passion," said daughter Anita Rittendale of Atlanta, Ga.

Marguerite F. Rittendale, an award-winning teacher who served as coordinator of the GATE -- Gifted and Talented Education -- program for skilled students, died Friday at her Las Vegas home after a two-year battle with cancer. She was 76.

Services for the Las Vegas resident of 44 years will be 10 a.m. Thursday at Our Lady of Las Vegas Catholic Church.

Rittendale's Sun column focused on society gossip, drama and show casting news.

For 33 years until her retirement in 1997, Rittendale worked for the Clark County School District.

In 1984 she received an excellence award from the Education Consolidation and Improvement Act for utilizing community resources to effectively coordinate sixth grade classes.

Born Marguerite Fusaro on July 23, 1929, in Elmira, N.Y., she was the youngest of four children of office machinery repairman Michael Fusaro and the former Elizabeth D'Annunzio.

She graduated from Mercyhurst College in Erie, Pa. She married Anthony Rittendale in upstate New York and worked in the Suffern, N.Y., school system before moving to Las Vegas in 1961.

Rittendale was hired by the Clark County School District in 1964 and taught at several institutions, including second and third grades at Adcock Elementary, fourth grade at Lincoln Elementary and sixth grade at Booker and Kelly Elementary schools and the old Madison Sixth Grade Center.

As GATE coordinator, she took students on field trips to Washington, D.C., for three consecutive years.

In the 1970s Rittendale approached the late Ralph Petillo, then-publisher of the Panorama weekly newspaper, about writing an entertainment column for his paper.

"He paid my mother in restaurant comps," Anita Rittendale said. "But she did not mind because being a columnist got her foot in the door to write about a lot of shows and a lot of celebrities, which she loved doing."

Rittendale later worked briefly for another Petillo weekly, The Las Vegas Mirror, before penning the Sun column.

In addition to her daughter, Rittendale is survived by another daughter, Alyssa Rittendale of New Haven, Conn.; a son, Antony Rittendale of Las Vegas; three grandsons, Tate Maille and Owen Maile and James Wilson; and one granddaughter Adelaide Wilson.