Millennium's end new beginning for Nevada governor
by Jon Christensen
Kenny Guinn started his day whistling a snappy tune. His wife, Dema, knew he was happy. He always whistled that special tune when things were going well.
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Photo by Kit Miller |
And today they were at the end of a long, hard road. They had been on the campaign trail together for 30 months, crisscrossing the state to win the governor's office. It was a victory that some said was being handed to Kenny Guinn.
But the Guinns knew better. Rarely is anything ever handed to you. You have to be ready when opportunity comes. And that takes work.
The Guinns could look back now across 30 years of working together on Kenny's political career in Nevada. Looking back even further, the small farming town in California's Central Valley where they both grew up was still very much alive in their memories.
Dema's father owned a grocery store in Exeter and Kenny's was a laborer in a cold storage plant. They were sweethearts just out of high school when they got married in Reno 42 years ago. Dema supported Kenny while he went to college and then graduate school .
Then they moved to Las Vegas in 1964. They could see it booming. With Kenny's determination and Dema's unflagging support, they could make themselves part of that big thing. And today all that hard work and careful cultivation was bearing fruit.
It was still dark in the governor's mansion at 5:30 a.m. The inauguration wouldn't begin until 10 a.m. but Kenny was always up this early at home. So he made coffee and knocked about the bathroom getting ready for his first day at work.
In just half an hour, the construction workers would arrive to continue renovating the governor's mansion.
In a way, the big old house itself was a symbol of the transition between the old administration and the new. It was still a work in progress. They could have stayed in a hotel but it wouldn't have been the same.
The whole family was together here in the new house. And that was the way it should be. The Guinn boys, Jeff and Steve, and their wives and children were still asleep upstairs.
Soon the house would be filled with the busy activity of six adults and four children competing for the bathroom - one shower still had to be repaired - and getting ready for the biggest day in their lives.
But for now Kenny had the dark house to himself and the only sound was the jaunty tune he whistled.
Before 8 a.m., he went out into the morning dressed in a gray suit and black overcoat. Some of his young staff members were already waiting for him at the silver-domed capitol.
"They were as excited as I was, maybe more," he said. "It was a long hard road for some of them, too."
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Photo by Kit Miller |
Guinn saw a woman carrying a heavy coffee urn. "Let me help you do that," he said, taking it from her. Truth be told, there wasn't much else to be done.
"I was just kind of standing around waiting for the action to begin," he said. Soon friends and reporters began trickling in and Guinn showed them around the spare.