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Bonnie Bryan

Bonnie Bryan
Photo Credit: University of Nevada Reno

The voice you usually hear on Nevada Yesterdays is that of Senator Richard Bryan. But this time we’re going to be talking a bit about him and especially about Bonnie Bryan. They had been married two days shy of 54 years when she died late in August. We’re hurting for the Bryan family, but this was a loss for all of us.

Bonnie Fairchild was born in Lodi and came to Reno fresh out of high school to attend the university. In 1958, a transplant from Las Vegas named Richard Bryan was running for student body president. His campaign manager was Jim Joyce, a fellow Las Vegan who later became one of Nevada’s greatest political consultants and lobbyists. Someone had the idea that it would help the Bryan campaign if the candidate went to a dance with someone from a particular sorority. He asked Ms. Fairchild to the dance and the rest really is history: they fell in love and got married after graduation.

The Bryans had three children: Richard, Jr., Leslie, and Blair. Bonnie Bryan saw to it the family had dinner together every night, if possible, and it wasn’t always easy: as we know, Richard Bryan pursued a political career that took him all over Nevada and later to Capitol Hill. As she said, it was a package deal: Nevadans were electing not just him, but his entire family.

Nevadans got quite a package, then, when the Bryan family moved to Carson City after the 1982 election. As governor, Richard Bryan kept busy, but she was tough to keep up with, too. She started Reno’s Safe Ride program to get teenagers home when they had been drinking illegally. She began a service for pharmacists to visit senior citizens to check on their prescriptions and their health. She helped set up Reno’s Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure for breast cancer. She oversaw the first renovation of the governor’s mansion in many years. And she opened up the mansion, especially to women’s groups that just MIGHT have been up to some political activities.

Her husband’s next political activity took him to the U.S. Senate. Bonnie hadn’t wanted to go to Washington, but when she got there, she became active in numerous charitable groups—and fell in love with all that great city had to offer. When Senator Bryan decided to come back home after two terms, she wanted him to stay in office. They came back, but she warned him: he had better get a job, because she wasn’t going to have lunch with him every day.

So, Senator Bryan got a job—in addition to his job reading Nevada Yesterdays—and Bonnie stayed as busy as ever. She was active in helping her alma mater as well as Nevada State College, in fighting the nuclear waste dump at Yucca Mountain, and in promoting literacy programs. For 40 years she belonged to the Junior League and did a lot for its tradition of community involvement.The Bryan family will always say Nevada has been good to them. But they have been good to Nevada. All of us who knew Bonnie Bryan knew what a special lady she was—our first lady in more ways than one, building a better Nevada.