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Mike O

Donal Neil 'Mike' O'Callaghan was the 23rd Governor of Nevada, serving from 1971 to 1979, and was a prominent member of the Democratic Party. A veteran of the Korean War, he transitioned from education to politics, achieving significant popularity as governor and later working as an executive editor and publisher. O'Callaghan passed away in 2004, leaving a legacy that includes several institutions and structures named in his honor.

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26 views2 pages

Mike O

Donal Neil 'Mike' O'Callaghan was the 23rd Governor of Nevada, serving from 1971 to 1979, and was a prominent member of the Democratic Party. A veteran of the Korean War, he transitioned from education to politics, achieving significant popularity as governor and later working as an executive editor and publisher. O'Callaghan passed away in 2004, leaving a legacy that includes several institutions and structures named in his honor.

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andreea
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© © All Rights Reserved
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Mike O'Callaghan

Donal Neil "Mike" O'Callaghan (September 10, 1929 – March 5, 2004) was an
American politician and educator who served as the 23rd Governor of Nevada from
1971 to 1979. He was a member of the Democratic Party.[1]

Early life
[edit]
Born in La Crosse, Wisconsin, O'Callaghan later moved to Sparta, where his family
subsistence farmed.[2] He lied about his age to join the U.S. Marine Corps, at the age of
16 and served from 1946 to 1948.

He attended Boise Junior College and joined the U.S. Air Force in 1950 and served as
an intelligence operator in the Aleutian Islands. O'Callaghan was transferred to the U.S.
Army in 1952 to see combat and lost part of his left leg after being hit by a mortar round
during a battle in the Korean War. He was awarded the Silver Star and Bronze Star and
returned to the United States.

O'Callaghan resumed his college studies at the University of Idaho in Moscow, where he
was a member of Tau Kappa Epsilon fraternity,[3] and completed his bachelor's and
master's degree in education in 1956,[4] then became a high school teacher and boxing
coach in Nevada.[5] He was U.S. Senator Harry Reid's history teacher at Basic High
School in Henderson and later promoted Reid's political career. From 1961 to 1963, he
was the chief probation officer and director of court services for Clark County.[5]

Political career
[edit]
O'Callaghan's political career began in 1963, when Governor Grant Sawyer appointed
him to head the state's new department of health and welfare.[5] In 1964,
President Lyndon B. Johnson appointed O'Callaghan to be the regional director of
the Office of Emergency Preparedness.

In 1966, O'Callaghan ran in the Democratic primary for lieutenant governor, but lost. In
1970, he received the Democratic gubernatorial nomination and won a surprising victory
in the general election over his Republican opponent, Edward Fike. He proved to be an
extremely popular governor and was re-elected in 1974 by a four-to-one margin, the
greatest landslide in a gubernatorial election in state history.

The last Nevada governor before term limits, who was eligible for an elected third term,
O'Callaghan chose not to run again in 1978.[6] After he left office O'Callaghan became
the executive editor of the Las Vegas Sun, a job he held until his death in 2004. He was
also the publisher of the Henderson Home News and Boulder City News. In the 1990s,
O'Callaghan monitored elections in Nicaragua and northern Iraq, and was a strong
supporter of the nation of Israel.
Death
[edit]
Mike O'Callaghan died on March 5, 2004, of a heart attack at the age of 74, after
collapsing during the morning mass hours at the Saint Viator Catholic Church in Las
Vegas, Nevada. He was pronounced dead at the Desert Springs Hospital in Paradise,
Nevada.[6][7] His widow Carolyn, a native of Twin Falls, Idaho, died seven months later on
October 7, 2004, of complications from cardiac surgery, at the age of 68. They were
married on October 25, 1954, in Twin Falls, Idaho and had five children; the former
governor died one month before their 50th anniversary.[8] Both are interred at the
Southern Nevada Veterans Memorial Cemetery in Boulder City, Nevada.

Legacy
[edit]
O'Callaghan's legacy as Nevada politician and philanthropist survives through three
structures that bear his name. Mike O'Callaghan Middle School opened on the east side
of Las Vegas in 1991. The Mike O'Callaghan Federal Hospital is located on Nellis Air
Force Base northeast of Las Vegas. A bridge that is a part of the highway bypass
around the Hoover Dam, spanning the Colorado River between Nevada and Arizona,
bears O'Callaghan's name, as well as that of former NFL Arizona Cardinals player and
U.S. Army veteran Pat Tillman. Tillman died in a friendly fire incident in Afghanistan.
The Mike O'Callaghan–Pat Tillman Memorial Bridge was completed on October 14,
2010.[9] Also in 2010, The O'Callaghan Resource Integrated Oncology Network (ORION)
Cancer Foundation, a nonprofit charity that assists cancer patients in Nevada was
established in honor of Mike and Carolyn O'Callaghan, both cancer survivors

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