Senate Concurrent Resolution No. 45–Senators Raggio, Amodei, Care, Carlton, Coffin, Jacobsen, James, Mathews, McGinness, Neal, O’Connell, O’Donnell, Porter, Rawson, Rhoads, Schneider, Shaffer, Titus, Townsend, Washington and Wiener

 

Joint Sponsors: Assemblymen Dini, Anderson, Angle, Arberry, Bache, Beers, Berman, Brower, Brown, Buckley, Carpenter, Cegavske, Chowning, Claborn, Collins, de Braga, Freeman, Gibbons, Giunchigliani, Goldwater, Gustavson, Hettrick, Humke, Koivisto, Lee, Leslie, Manendo, Marvel, McClain, Mortenson, Neighbors, Nolan, Oceguera, Ohrenschall, Parks, Parnell, Perkins, Price, Smith, Tiffany, Von Tobel and Williams

 

FILE NUMBER..........

 

Senate Concurrent RESOLUTION—Memorializing award-winning author
Robert Laxalt.

 

   Whereas, On March 23, 2001, Nevada residents, the Basque

 community and the world of literature lost a friend, counselor and literary

 genius with the death of Robert Laxalt, renowned Nevada author whose

 books have won critical acclaim and awards throughout the United States,

 the United Kingdom, Continental Europe and South America; and

   Whereas, The son of Basque immigrants, Robert Laxalt was born

 September 24, 1923, in Alturas, California, and grew up in Carson City,

 where his mother, Therese, operated a boarding house, and in the

 surrounding hills where he spent his childhood summers with his

 sheepherder father, Dominique; and

   Whereas, Robert was called “Frenchy” by his family and friends and

 was a natural welterweight boxer who loved boxing and whose fighting

 spirit in the boxing ring was always faintly present in his writings; and

   Whereas, Robert’s studies at Santa Clara University were interrupted

 by World War II, but he graduated in 1947 from the University of Nevada,

 Reno, with a degree in English, and it was during the years as a student in

 Reno that he became a correspondent for the Nevada State Journal and

 also contributed a regular Nevada history feature called “Tales Old-Timers

 Tell,” which became the basis for his first book published in 1950; and

   Whereas, As with many of Robert Laxalt’s life experiences, his

 service during World War II in the American Foreign Service became the

 subject of his novel, A Private War: An American Code Officer in the

 Belgian Congo; and

   Whereas, Although Robert enjoyed being a news reporter, he left his

 job as a United Press correspondent when the company wanted him to

 move to Mexico City or Los Angeles, and in 1954, he joined the

 University of Nevada as the Director of News and Publications; and

   Whereas, Understanding the difficulties encountered by Nevada

 writers in getting works published and seeing a need to tell the stories of

 these writers, Robert Laxalt founded the University of Nevada Press in

 1961 and served as its Director until his retirement in 1983 when he was

 designated Director Emeritus; and

   Whereas, A professor at the Reynolds School of Journalism for over a

decade, Robert Laxalt was also a mentor to his students and his advice to

 them, which describes his own life, was to “Take your writing seriously,

 but don’t take yourselves too seriously”; and

   Whereas, Sweet Promised Land, Robert Laxalt’s moving memoir of

 his father’s immigration to the American West, is considered an American

 classic because of its universal themes of ethnic pride and struggle, and the

 opening line, “My father was a sheepherder, and his home was the hills,”

 is credited with putting Nevada’s Basque community on the map and

 helping to launch the Basque Studies Program at the University of

 Nevada, Reno; and

   Whereas, Drawing on his Basque heritage as the inspiration for many

 of his 17 books, Robert Laxalt emerged as the principal voice of Basques

 in America and was one of the forces that led the University of Nevada,

 Reno, to become the major center for Basque studies in America; and

   Whereas, The love Robert Laxalt had for Nevada is evident in many of

 the stories he wrote that are deeply rooted in Nevada soil and filled with

 Nevada characters which he brought to life through his own unique,

 compassionate and caring view of the world; and

   Whereas, Described as soft-spoken, polite and self-effacing by those

 who knew him, Robert Laxalt’s priority was his family and he is survived

 by his wife, Joyce, whose photographs illustrate his book, The Land of My

 Fathers: A Son’s Return to the Basque Country, by his son, Bruce, and

 daughters, Monique Laxalt Urza and Kristin Laxalt Nomura, who

 remember the rhythmic tapping of their father’s trusty Royal typewriter as

 the background music of their childhood home, by his grandchildren,

 Gabriel, Alexandra, Amy and Kevin, and by his brothers, Paul, John and

 Peter, and his sisters, Suzanne Laxalt and Marie Laxalt Bini, and several

 nieces and nephews; now, therefore, be it

   Resolved by the Senate of the State of Nevada, the Assembly

 Concurring, That the members of the 71st session of the Nevada

 Legislature hereby express their deepest sympathy to the family and

 countless friends of Robert Laxalt; and be it further

   Resolved, That the sensitivity and insight that were an integral part of

 Robert Laxalt will live forever in his books and will continue to inspire

 readers to develop a profound appreciation of their own unique heritage;

 and be it further

   Resolved, That, on seeing the state flower, Nevadans may remember

 with pride the comparison Robert Laxalt made when he wrote “How very

 much like the sagebrush the people are, at least in the hinterland that

 makes up most of Nevada, setting down roots and thriving in unlikely

 places, hardy and resilient, stubborn and independent, restrained by

 environment and yet able to grow free”; and be it further

   Resolved, That the Secretary of the Senate prepare and transmit a copy

 of this resolution to Robert Laxalt’s loving wife, Joyce.

 

²⁰~~~~~⁰¹