Senate Concurrent Resolution No. 28–Senators Raggio, Amodei, Care, Carlton, Cegavske, Coffin, Hardy, Mathews, McGinness, Neal, Nolan, O’Connell, Rawson, Rhoads, Schneider, Shaffer, Tiffany, Titus, Townsend, Washington and Wiener

 

Joint Sponsors: Assemblymen Gibbons, Anderson, Andonov, Angle, Arberry, Atkinson, Beers, Brown, Buckley, Carpenter, Chowning, Christensen, Claborn, Collins, Conklin, Geddes, Giunchigliani, Goicoechea, Goldwater, Grady, Griffin, Gustavson, Hardy, Hettrick, Horne, Knecht, Koivisto, Leslie, Mabey, Manendo, Marvel, McClain, McCleary, Mortenson, Oceguera, Ohrenschall, Parks, Perkins, Pierce, Sherer, Weber and Williams

 

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

 

SENATE CONCURRENT RESOLUTION—Memorializing journalist, distinguished writer and newspaper executive, Rollan Melton.

 

    Whereas, The members of the Nevada Legislature join the

family and friends of Rollan Melton in mourning the passing and

remembering the life of the man who believed that the chief mission

of any good newspaper should be to provide readers with the

information necessary to understand their community’s past and

present; and

    Whereas, Born in Boise, Idaho, on July 24, 1931, Rollan

Melton moved with his family from town to town and attended 18

different elementary schools by the time his mother settled in

Fallon, Nevada, where Rollan attended high school, played high

school football and got a job as an apprentice printer at the Fallon

Standard; and

    Whereas, The Fallon High School faculty voted to award

Rollan a Harold’s Club college scholarship which gave him the

opportunity to attend the University of Nevada, Reno, where he

continued the dual disciplines of football and journalism that would

set him on a course for the remainder of his life; and

    Whereas, After his graduation from the University of Nevada,

Reno, in 1955, Rollan spent 2 years in the United States Army,

during which he was appointed Public Information Officer of the 1st

Infantry Division at Fort Riley, Kansas, and was asked to coach the

Fort’s football team; and

    Whereas, Following his discharge from the Army, Rollan

Melton joined the Reno Evening Gazette and became its Sports

Editor in 1957, its Promotion Leader following an attempted work

stoppage at the newspaper, its Editor by the age of 32 and, with just

9 years in the company, the Publisher of both the Reno Evening

Gazette and the Nevada State Journal in 1966; and

    Whereas, Rollan’s seemingly insatiable appetite for knowledge

and his ability to learn from everyone with whom he worked spurred

his career in the world of journalism which continued when Rollan

became Vice President of the Speidel Newspaper Group in 1969,

was chosen its President just 3 years later, and after Speidel merged

with the Gannett newspaper chain in 1977, was named Senior Vice

President of Gannett’s Western Division and a Gannett board

member; and

    Whereas, After only 2 years, Rollan resigned his vice-

presidency and returned to Reno to write his popular column in the

Reno Gazette-Journal because, as he expressed it in the preface to

his book Nevadans, he “yearned to go back to the people and the

telling of their stories”; and

    Whereas, During his 24 years as a columnist for the Reno-

Gazette Journal, Rollan Melton used his wit and love of the people

of Nevada to paint story pictures which Robert Laxalt called “a

mosaic of the personality, character and attitudes of the true

Nevadan” that could only be written by someone “with sensitivity to

the state’s people”; and

    Whereas, Some of Rollan Melton’s nearly 4,000 newspaper

columns are presented again in his books, Nevadans, and 101

Nevada Columns, and these books, along with his autobiographical

Sonny’s Story: A Journalist’s Memoir, that relates an American

success story of almost mythic proportions, validate his membership

in the Nevada Writers’ Hall of Fame, which named him a 2001

Honoree; and

    Whereas, Named Distinguished Nevadan in 1979 and inducted

into the Nevada Newspaper Hall of Fame in 1998, Rollan Melton

will also be remembered for his involvement in philanthropic

organizations, which included his generous support of and deep

interest in the University of Nevada Oral History Program; and

    Whereas, Rollan Melton is survived by his wife Marilyn, his

sons, Royle, Wayne and Kevin, his daughter, Emelie Williams, and

his grandchildren; now, therefore, be it

    Resolved by the Senate of the State of Nevada, the

Assembly Concurring, That the members of the 72nd Session of

the Nevada Legislature extend their heartfelt sympathy to the family

and friends of Rollan Melton; and be it further

    Resolved, That the Rollan Melton Elementary School, which

opened in northwest Reno in the fall of 2002, and the Rollan D.

Melton Post Office Building, which was named by Public Law

107-267, passed on October 30, 2002, will remind Nevadans of the

man who enriched lives with his compassionate and humorous

stories of the legends and the unknowns of this state; and be it

further

    Resolved, That Rollan Melton’s life, in his own words “an

against-all-odds trip, from ragamuffin little kid to director on the

governing board of one of the premier media corporations of all

time,” will encourage everyone who knew him, personally or

through his writing, to grow continually toward the potential that is

available through preparation and hard work; and be it further

    Resolved, That the Secretary of the Senate prepare and

transmit a copy of this resolution to his loving wife,

Marilyn Melton.

 

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