Ruthie will be missed by the many she knew

Jerry Fink

Saturday, March 25, 2006 | 7:16 a.m.

Ruthie will be missed.

The popular hostess at the Bootlegger Bistro is giving up the bright lights and runaway growth of Las Vegas for the serenity and slower pace of the picturesque Ozark Mountains in northeast Arkansas.

Her final day on the job is today.

A standing-room-only party was held for her Monday night.

Another is planned tonight, during Freddie Bell's "Open House" (a revue held every Friday and Saturday).

"I will miss the people," said Ruth Catalano, who's more commonly known as Ruthie. "I have met so many nice people. It's been a good life here in Las Vegas."

But Arkansas? Where the Clampett clan fled for the Beverly Hills?

"It's beautiful," Catalano said. "We bought a house on a lake. There are seven lakes in the area, and two golf courses. We're about 16 miles south of the Missouri state line. I'll have a garden, when I have the time."

She and her husband, John, will be moving to Cherokee Village. "It's a new adventure for me," she said. "I need a challenge."

With a population smaller than the number of people moving to Las Vegas each month (around 7,000), Cherokee Village may be a challenge for the Catalanos, natives of Chicago.

"My husband was born in the heart of Chicago," Ruthie Catalano said. "He's a city boy through and through.

"He was a little skeptical at first, but then we went there and met all kinds of wonderful people. "

She has been hired as project manager for a developer in Cherokee Village.

The official 2000 Census reported a full-time population of about 5,000 in Cherokee Village, although it is a rapidly growing resort and retirement community - the attractions include golf, hunting, fishing, ice cream socials, duck races and solitude.

The couple moved to Las Vegas in 1970 to escape the Chicago weather and opened an Italian sandwich shop at Fremont Street and Las Vegas Boulevard.

She said her husband didn't like it and took a job at El Cortez.

Ruthie Catalano cut off a fingertip at the shop, and while she was recovering from having it reattached, her husband was back to work in the sandwich shop during the day - and working at El Cortez at nights. "He hated it and so he sold the shop."

Ruthie Catalano then went to work at the now-closed Venetian Restaurant on West Sahara Avenue, at the time owned by sisters Maria Perry (mother of Lt. Gov. Lorraine Hunt) and Angie Ruvo.

"Mama" Maria later sold her interest to start the original Bootlegger restaurant .

Eventually, Ruthie Catalano went to work for a convention services company, doing public relations and helping organize conventions. From 1980-85 she ran her own convention company and then started a liquidation business - selling liquidated furniture from major hotels.

"My first project was 2,400 rooms of furniture from the old MGM (now Bally's)," she said.

Catalano has always been a juggler, working on several projects at once.

In 1976 she started the Las Vegas Chicagoans Club, a social group for former Chicago residents. The club lasted 15 years.

Catalano also owned a dress shop, renting high-end gowns by such designers as Bob Mackie and Christian Dior.

In 1983 she was a founding member of the Augustus Society, originally known as the Italian American Professional Executives Association. She eventually was elected president.