Ann Lynch

By Brian Sodoma

Friday, May 1, 2009 | 4 p.m.

Ann Lynch likes to tell people that when John C. Fremont came to the valley for the first time, she served him coffee. While the joke about her longevity brings its share of laughs, Lynch, who has called the valley home since 1959, has brought through the years much more than simple humor to health care policies and practices in Las Vegas.

Lynch, who serves as the vice president of government relations for Sunrise Health System, is a past president of the Nevada Parent Teacher Association and the Las Vegas Area Council PTA, a role in which she helped pass legislation mandating immunizations for elementary school children, as well as the helmet law requiring motorcyclists to wear head protection.

Lynch also has served on the board of the The Public Education Foundation, Clark County Family Child Care Association and has been a member of the Ronald McDonald House Steering Committee, National Drug and Alcohol Abuse Prevention Commission and the Nevada Commission on Postsecondary Education.

“I was always very interested in medicine but never had the skills (to pursue it),” Lynch said. “It was just a combination of having a great interest in children and being extremely concerned about their health … which led me to become an advocate for their health.”

Lynch volunteered in hospitals as a teenager and even volunteered at Sunrise in the late ’60s, before taking a position with the hospital in 1972. She also was a founder of the Sunrise Children’s Hospital Foundation. Established in 1993, the foundation offers 12 health education programs for Southern Nevada children. Each year, the group reaches 200,000 children, half of whom are low-income, minority or limited in English proficiency. Some of the programs the Sunrise Foundation offers are: Early Head Start, Baby? Think It Over, Parents as Teachers, Signing for Kids, Women, Infants & Children clinics and more.

“I think if you really believe in something and you’re really not selfish, and what you want is for the betterment of others, you can be heard,” Lynch continued. “There are too many voices crying for limited interests. … I think, too often, we forget why we came into the swamp.”

Coming from a family of journalists, Lynch, who moved to Las Vegas from Indiana, chose the marketing and public relations fields instead. She counts moving to Southern Nevada at a time when the population was only 300,000 as a personal and professional blessing.

“I happened to fall into things I love, and the best thing is, I found opportunities that allowed me to make things happen,” she said. “I’m just very thankful that I came to Nevada and … was surrounded by many extremely talented people that made me look good. … If I would have stayed in Indiana, gone to California, New York, I don’t think I would have been able to have the influence I’ve had.”

Lynch also has a valley elementary school named after her.