William John Raggio, Jr., former Washoe County District Attorney, the longest serving state senator in Nevada history, successful gaming attorney, and one of Nevada's most admired citizens, died of respiratory illness while on vacation in Sydney, Australia on February 24. He was 85.
Born on October 30, 1926 in Reno to William J. and Clara Cardelli Raggio, Bill lived a full and genuine Nevada life and, throughout it all, he did it his way.
Like so many others of his "greatest" generation, Bill was always a gentleman, a caring father, grandfather and great-grandfather, he was a quietly reliable friend to those less fortunate and a man with a clear and resolute voice that frequently reminded us that there are no barriers to what can be accomplished if we summon the will to work together.
Upon his retirement from elected office in 2011 after 56 years in public life, Bill remarked, "There were good times, tough times and fun times. Naturally, there were disagreements but I always felt the final result was always in the best interest of Nevada."
He attended Orvis Ring Elementary School, Northside Junior High School and graduated from Reno High School in 1944. Bill joined the Boy Scouts of America in 1938 and later credited his success to that experience. At a ceremony honoring him as National Distinguished Eagle Scout in 1989, Bill said, "Scouting taught me the importance of principles, morals and achievement. I have received a lot of recognition in my life, but I think the Eagle Scout Badge was the one I cherish most."
At age 17, Bill enlisted in the Navy and graduated from officer training school as a second lieutenant in the Marine Corps at the end of World War II.
He attended Louisiana Tech University, the University of Oklahoma, and the University of Nevada, Reno where he earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1948. While at the University of Nevada, he was a proud member of the Alpha Tau Omega fraternity.
He later obtained a law degree from the Hastings College of Law and pursued a master's degree in law from Boalt Hall School of Law at the University of California, Berkeley. He was admitted to the Nevada Bar in 1951.
Raggio was district attorney in Washoe County from 1958 to 1970 and was named "Outstanding Prosecutor in the United States" in 1965. He was elected president of the National District Attorneys Association in 1967.
He ran unsuccessfully for the United State Senate in 1970, but two years later was elected to the Nevada State Senate representing Washoe County. During his record five decades in the Senate, ten sessions where he served as Majority Leader, Bill worked beside and with seven Nevada Governors. During that time, he developed a reputation as a master of the legislative process, a skilled negotiator and a leading voice for education excellence.
Bill was particularly interested in seeking changes in public education to improve Nevada student performance. He was the key architect of legislation that required high school seniors to pass math, reading and other proficiency tests before they could receive a full-fledged diploma.
Bill was a senior partner at Jones Vargas Law Firm in Reno/Las Vegas; a member of the Board of Trustees of the E. L. Wiegand Foundation; a trustee of the University of Nevada, Reno Foundation and had served on the Board of Directors of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) since 1983 and was its National Chairman in 1993. He was also a former member of the Board of Directors of Sierra Health Services and Archon Corporation.
He was a member of several clubs and organizations including the State Bar of Nevada; Washoe County Bar Association; American Judicature Society; International Academy of Law & Science; American Trial Lawyers Association; Phi Alpha Delta; Elks; Republican State Central Committee; Reno (Host) Lions Club; American Legion; Prospectors; and the American Board of Criminal Lawyers.
Bill was preceded in death by his parents, his first wife Dorothy and his son Mark William. He is survived by his wife Dale, his daughters Leslie Ann Righetti and Tracy Lynn Chew, grandchildren Jennifer Brie Righetti, Michael Christopher Righetti, Meghan (Dave) Clariché Righetti Nesher, Johnathan "Jolly" William Righetti, Sommer Lynn Fernandes, Anthony Alton William Woodring, one great-grandchild Julien David Nesher, and first cousin Edith Raggio.
A Rosary Service will be held at St. Rose of Lima Catholic Church, 100 Bishop Manogue Drive, Reno, NV on Sunday, March 4, 2012 at 7:00 pm.
A Funeral Mass will be held at St. Rose of Lima Catholic Church on Monday, March 5, 2012 at 2:00 pm.
A reception celebrating Bill Raggio's life will be held at The Silver Legacy Casino immediately following the services.
In lieu of flowers and in memory of William J. Raggio, contributions can be made to the University of Nevada, Reno Foundation at Morrill Hall, Reno, NV 89557 or to the Carmelites of Reno, 1950 La Fond Drive, Reno, NV 89509-3099.
-----
Monsignor Leo McFadden said it best: The late Bill Raggio loved his state so much and was so influential in its legislative history that his middle name "must have been Nevada."
More than 1,200 of his fellow Nevadans, including most of the state's political establishment, turned out at Saint Rose of Lima Catholic Church on Monday to honor Raggio, who died Feb. 24 of respiratory illness during a vacation trip to Sydney, Australia, with his wife, Dale. He was 85.
They cried and laughed as McFadden and other speakers eulogized the man who had served a record 38 years as a Republican senator from Reno, including 10 legislative sessions as Senate majority leader. He retired from the Legislature in January 2011 and was elected to the Senate Hall of Fame in April.
During the two-hour funeral, Gov. Brian Sandoval called Raggio "one of the greatest men we all have ever known."
"His impact touched every man, woman and child in Nevada. He told me, 'If you only do what you believe is right, you never can do wrong.' "
Raggio will be known as the father of the law that requires high school students to pass proficiency tests to secure diplomas and the constitutional amendment that limits legislative sessions to 120 days every other year. A political moderate who was willing to compromise with Democrats, he engineered the deal in 2009 that led to $800 million in temporary tax increases. Most of those increases were extended by Sandoval and the Legislature in 2011, averting a protracted special session.
Sandoval also called Raggio the "last great patriarch" of Nevada politics and asked the audience, including legislative leaders of both parties, to "follow his example."
The funeral was both solemn and humorous. A color guard of Marines and police officers carried the closed casket into the church. Raggio was a second lieutenant in the Marine Corps at the end of World War II. A 21-gun salute sounded at the end of the service. Fourteen members of the Catholic clergy participated in the funeral Mass, which included communion for fellow church members of the audience.
When the hearse carried the remains away after the service, it passed under a huge American flag draped at the top of ladders on firetrucks on each side of the highway.
But there was even more levity than sorrow. Richard Bryan, a Democrat who formerly served as governor and U.S. senator, remembered going on a goodwill trip to China with Raggio in 1978, the year Bryan ran for state attorney general. As a practical joke, Raggio draped a "Bryan For Attorney General" sign over the Great Wall of China. An embarrassed Bryan hurriedly ripped the sign as security guards approached and while Raggio laughed in the distance.
Raymond "Skip" Avansino remembered he once asked Raggio why he had attended so many funerals, often delivering the eulogy.
Paraphrasing Yogi Berra, Raggio told him he went to funerals for other people because if he didn't, "they won't go to mine."
"Bill," he said, " the church is full."
McFadden joined in the humor. He remembered how Raggio would give him the sign of cutting his neck when he thought the religious service was going too long.
"I got the message," added McFadden, noting Raggio was a man of faith who now has "peace everlasting."
Among the members of the audience were U.S. Sen. Dean Heller, R-Nev., state Senate Majority Leader Steven Horsford, D-Las Vegas, Senate Minority Leader Mike McGinness, R-Fallon, Senate caucus leaders Mo Denis, D-Las Vegas, and Michael Roberson, R-Las Vegas, former Assembly Speaker Barbara Buckley, D-Las Vegas, and former U.S. Rep. Dina Titus, who long served as state Senate Democratic leader when Raggio was the upper house's Republican leader.
The most touching tributes to Raggio came from his daughters, Tracy Raggio Chew and Leslie Raggio Righetti. Chew read the familiar passages of Ecclesiastes, saying for every time there is a season, including "a time to be born and a time to die."
Righetti mentioned how Raggio once told her he wished he could have captured rain from California and taken it to Nevada to green up the arid state.
"Bill, my dad, was the rain that made it better for all of us," said Righetti, who sang the silly campaign song her father had used in his 1970 political campaign for the U.S. Senate, the second of three statewide races he lost.
She also joked how her father hogged the family's only bathroom in the morning as she was growing up so that he could spend more time blow-drying his famous auburn hair.
All six of Raggio's grandchildren -- Jennifer Righetti, Johnathan Righetti, Meghan Righetti Nesher, Sommer Fernandes, Michael Righetti and Anthony Woodring -- participated in the service.
Raggio's first wife, Dorothy, died in 1998 after 49 years of marriage. His son, Mark, died in 2004. Raggio married his second wife, Dale, in 2003.
Fitting for a man who served his state for so long, the service concluded when the audience sang "Home Means Nevada," the state song.
By Ed Vogel
-----
Bill Raggio - Crusading Against A Whoremonger
March 23, 1960: Bill Raggio burned down Joe Conforte's whorehouse.
He didn't actually light the fire, and in later years in a biography by Michael Archer, he described his role as "spectator."
That's not how Northern Nevada newspapers characterized it at the time when the then-Washoe County district attorney gained national notoriety for torching the Triangle Ranch brothel, even if firefighters did the actual torching.
The Triangle Ranch covered pieces of Storey, Washoe and Lyon counties, so the DA in Storey County, with Raggio's backing, obtained a judge's approval to burn the joint, but it was Raggio who was dubbed Nevada's brothel-burning DA.
The mutual loathing between Raggio and Conforte had caused Conforte to try to set up Raggio with a 17-year-old prostitute in November 1959, sparking the brothel burning four months later.
The flurry of remembrances following Raggio's death Thursday focused heavily on his Senate years. His statesmanship. His legendary support of higher education. His making sure that Northern Nevada received more than its fair share of state tax dollars. His ability to bring legislators to an agreement, no matter how uneasy.
But Raggio's 12 years as Washoe County DA were his more colorful years, launching an enmity with Conforte that lasted until Raggio's death at 85.
Conforte, now living the high life in Brazil to avoid federal tax charges, even joined the politicians in offering up statements.
"This man was very intelligent, and he was a good politician," Conforte told the Reno Gazette Journal in a statement. "In fact, with all his talents, I think he could have been president of the United States if only he hadn't (expletive deleted) with Joe Conforte."
See why Raggio couldn't stand the guy?
Raggio, proud of his own Italian heritage, despised the Sicilian pimp who moved to Northern Nevada to set up shop in 1955.
Elected DA in 1958, Raggio was disgusted by Conforte, who flaunted his hookers in public and tossed money around like candy, bribing law enforcement officials to leave him alone, tipping with $100 bills.
At their first meeting in June 1959, Raggio told Conforte he was banned from Washoe County because he was a vagrant, a pimp living off the earnings of prostitutes.
Archer, who wrote "A Man of His Word," quoted Raggio saying, "I subsequently put out an order that he be arrested when he showed up, though that was often complicated because many members of the law enforcement community considered him a friend and refused."
To counterattack, Conforte decided to set up Raggio and arranged for an underage prostitute to approach Raggio on Nov. 13, 1959, purportedly to handle her divorce. (At that time in Washoe County, a DA could also handle private clients.)
The next day, she asked Raggio to meet her at the Riverside Hotel. She told him she was 22, and they had drinks at the bar; then she said she felt ill and asked him to help her to her room.
The gentlemanly but canny Raggio arranged with a hotel executive to join them when Raggio took the woman back to her room. They all chatted, and the two men left.
Soon afterward, Conforte met with Raggio and told him to back off because the teenager would swear she had had sex with Raggio, ruining his political future.
What Conforte didn't know until his June 1960 extortion trial was that a court-authorized bug captured his profanity-laced threats to Raggio. Eventually, he went to Nevada State Prison for 22 months.
With term limits, there will never be another legislator with 38 years in the Senate, making Raggio, a moderate Republican, the last of his kind in more ways than one.
I knew the cagey senator for 25 years but wish I had known him in 1960 when he was the handsome DA fighting false accusations and crusading against a whoremonger.
- By Jane Ann Morrison
-----
Pictures of Bill Raggio Through the Years
Video - Interview with Bill Raggio
Video - Home Means Nevada performed by the Killers
Video - Harry Reid remembers his friend Bill Raggio
Video - Mark Amodei talks about Bill Raggio
Video - The Execution of Mrs. Potts narrated by Bill Raggio
Video - Interview with Joe Conforte
Video - Bill Raggio and the Rat Pack
Video - Reno in 1943
-----
Thanks to Dennis Diullo for sponsoring this memorial!
Born on October 30, 1926 in Reno to William J. and Clara Cardelli Raggio, Bill lived a full and genuine Nevada life and, throughout it all, he did it his way.
Like so many others of his "greatest" generation, Bill was always a gentleman, a caring father, grandfather and great-grandfather, he was a quietly reliable friend to those less fortunate and a man with a clear and resolute voice that frequently reminded us that there are no barriers to what can be accomplished if we summon the will to work together.
Upon his retirement from elected office in 2011 after 56 years in public life, Bill remarked, "There were good times, tough times and fun times. Naturally, there were disagreements but I always felt the final result was always in the best interest of Nevada."
He attended Orvis Ring Elementary School, Northside Junior High School and graduated from Reno High School in 1944. Bill joined the Boy Scouts of America in 1938 and later credited his success to that experience. At a ceremony honoring him as National Distinguished Eagle Scout in 1989, Bill said, "Scouting taught me the importance of principles, morals and achievement. I have received a lot of recognition in my life, but I think the Eagle Scout Badge was the one I cherish most."
At age 17, Bill enlisted in the Navy and graduated from officer training school as a second lieutenant in the Marine Corps at the end of World War II.
He attended Louisiana Tech University, the University of Oklahoma, and the University of Nevada, Reno where he earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1948. While at the University of Nevada, he was a proud member of the Alpha Tau Omega fraternity.
He later obtained a law degree from the Hastings College of Law and pursued a master's degree in law from Boalt Hall School of Law at the University of California, Berkeley. He was admitted to the Nevada Bar in 1951.
Raggio was district attorney in Washoe County from 1958 to 1970 and was named "Outstanding Prosecutor in the United States" in 1965. He was elected president of the National District Attorneys Association in 1967.
He ran unsuccessfully for the United State Senate in 1970, but two years later was elected to the Nevada State Senate representing Washoe County. During his record five decades in the Senate, ten sessions where he served as Majority Leader, Bill worked beside and with seven Nevada Governors. During that time, he developed a reputation as a master of the legislative process, a skilled negotiator and a leading voice for education excellence.
Bill was particularly interested in seeking changes in public education to improve Nevada student performance. He was the key architect of legislation that required high school seniors to pass math, reading and other proficiency tests before they could receive a full-fledged diploma.
Bill was a senior partner at Jones Vargas Law Firm in Reno/Las Vegas; a member of the Board of Trustees of the E. L. Wiegand Foundation; a trustee of the University of Nevada, Reno Foundation and had served on the Board of Directors of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) since 1983 and was its National Chairman in 1993. He was also a former member of the Board of Directors of Sierra Health Services and Archon Corporation.
He was a member of several clubs and organizations including the State Bar of Nevada; Washoe County Bar Association; American Judicature Society; International Academy of Law & Science; American Trial Lawyers Association; Phi Alpha Delta; Elks; Republican State Central Committee; Reno (Host) Lions Club; American Legion; Prospectors; and the American Board of Criminal Lawyers.
Bill was preceded in death by his parents, his first wife Dorothy and his son Mark William. He is survived by his wife Dale, his daughters Leslie Ann Righetti and Tracy Lynn Chew, grandchildren Jennifer Brie Righetti, Michael Christopher Righetti, Meghan (Dave) Clariché Righetti Nesher, Johnathan "Jolly" William Righetti, Sommer Lynn Fernandes, Anthony Alton William Woodring, one great-grandchild Julien David Nesher, and first cousin Edith Raggio.
A Rosary Service will be held at St. Rose of Lima Catholic Church, 100 Bishop Manogue Drive, Reno, NV on Sunday, March 4, 2012 at 7:00 pm.
A Funeral Mass will be held at St. Rose of Lima Catholic Church on Monday, March 5, 2012 at 2:00 pm.
A reception celebrating Bill Raggio's life will be held at The Silver Legacy Casino immediately following the services.
In lieu of flowers and in memory of William J. Raggio, contributions can be made to the University of Nevada, Reno Foundation at Morrill Hall, Reno, NV 89557 or to the Carmelites of Reno, 1950 La Fond Drive, Reno, NV 89509-3099.
-----
Monsignor Leo McFadden said it best: The late Bill Raggio loved his state so much and was so influential in its legislative history that his middle name "must have been Nevada."
More than 1,200 of his fellow Nevadans, including most of the state's political establishment, turned out at Saint Rose of Lima Catholic Church on Monday to honor Raggio, who died Feb. 24 of respiratory illness during a vacation trip to Sydney, Australia, with his wife, Dale. He was 85.
They cried and laughed as McFadden and other speakers eulogized the man who had served a record 38 years as a Republican senator from Reno, including 10 legislative sessions as Senate majority leader. He retired from the Legislature in January 2011 and was elected to the Senate Hall of Fame in April.
During the two-hour funeral, Gov. Brian Sandoval called Raggio "one of the greatest men we all have ever known."
"His impact touched every man, woman and child in Nevada. He told me, 'If you only do what you believe is right, you never can do wrong.' "
Raggio will be known as the father of the law that requires high school students to pass proficiency tests to secure diplomas and the constitutional amendment that limits legislative sessions to 120 days every other year. A political moderate who was willing to compromise with Democrats, he engineered the deal in 2009 that led to $800 million in temporary tax increases. Most of those increases were extended by Sandoval and the Legislature in 2011, averting a protracted special session.
Sandoval also called Raggio the "last great patriarch" of Nevada politics and asked the audience, including legislative leaders of both parties, to "follow his example."
The funeral was both solemn and humorous. A color guard of Marines and police officers carried the closed casket into the church. Raggio was a second lieutenant in the Marine Corps at the end of World War II. A 21-gun salute sounded at the end of the service. Fourteen members of the Catholic clergy participated in the funeral Mass, which included communion for fellow church members of the audience.
When the hearse carried the remains away after the service, it passed under a huge American flag draped at the top of ladders on firetrucks on each side of the highway.
But there was even more levity than sorrow. Richard Bryan, a Democrat who formerly served as governor and U.S. senator, remembered going on a goodwill trip to China with Raggio in 1978, the year Bryan ran for state attorney general. As a practical joke, Raggio draped a "Bryan For Attorney General" sign over the Great Wall of China. An embarrassed Bryan hurriedly ripped the sign as security guards approached and while Raggio laughed in the distance.
Raymond "Skip" Avansino remembered he once asked Raggio why he had attended so many funerals, often delivering the eulogy.
Paraphrasing Yogi Berra, Raggio told him he went to funerals for other people because if he didn't, "they won't go to mine."
"Bill," he said, " the church is full."
McFadden joined in the humor. He remembered how Raggio would give him the sign of cutting his neck when he thought the religious service was going too long.
"I got the message," added McFadden, noting Raggio was a man of faith who now has "peace everlasting."
Among the members of the audience were U.S. Sen. Dean Heller, R-Nev., state Senate Majority Leader Steven Horsford, D-Las Vegas, Senate Minority Leader Mike McGinness, R-Fallon, Senate caucus leaders Mo Denis, D-Las Vegas, and Michael Roberson, R-Las Vegas, former Assembly Speaker Barbara Buckley, D-Las Vegas, and former U.S. Rep. Dina Titus, who long served as state Senate Democratic leader when Raggio was the upper house's Republican leader.
The most touching tributes to Raggio came from his daughters, Tracy Raggio Chew and Leslie Raggio Righetti. Chew read the familiar passages of Ecclesiastes, saying for every time there is a season, including "a time to be born and a time to die."
Righetti mentioned how Raggio once told her he wished he could have captured rain from California and taken it to Nevada to green up the arid state.
"Bill, my dad, was the rain that made it better for all of us," said Righetti, who sang the silly campaign song her father had used in his 1970 political campaign for the U.S. Senate, the second of three statewide races he lost.
She also joked how her father hogged the family's only bathroom in the morning as she was growing up so that he could spend more time blow-drying his famous auburn hair.
All six of Raggio's grandchildren -- Jennifer Righetti, Johnathan Righetti, Meghan Righetti Nesher, Sommer Fernandes, Michael Righetti and Anthony Woodring -- participated in the service.
Raggio's first wife, Dorothy, died in 1998 after 49 years of marriage. His son, Mark, died in 2004. Raggio married his second wife, Dale, in 2003.
Fitting for a man who served his state for so long, the service concluded when the audience sang "Home Means Nevada," the state song.
By Ed Vogel
-----
Bill Raggio - Crusading Against A Whoremonger
March 23, 1960: Bill Raggio burned down Joe Conforte's whorehouse.
He didn't actually light the fire, and in later years in a biography by Michael Archer, he described his role as "spectator."
That's not how Northern Nevada newspapers characterized it at the time when the then-Washoe County district attorney gained national notoriety for torching the Triangle Ranch brothel, even if firefighters did the actual torching.
The Triangle Ranch covered pieces of Storey, Washoe and Lyon counties, so the DA in Storey County, with Raggio's backing, obtained a judge's approval to burn the joint, but it was Raggio who was dubbed Nevada's brothel-burning DA.
The mutual loathing between Raggio and Conforte had caused Conforte to try to set up Raggio with a 17-year-old prostitute in November 1959, sparking the brothel burning four months later.
The flurry of remembrances following Raggio's death Thursday focused heavily on his Senate years. His statesmanship. His legendary support of higher education. His making sure that Northern Nevada received more than its fair share of state tax dollars. His ability to bring legislators to an agreement, no matter how uneasy.
But Raggio's 12 years as Washoe County DA were his more colorful years, launching an enmity with Conforte that lasted until Raggio's death at 85.
Conforte, now living the high life in Brazil to avoid federal tax charges, even joined the politicians in offering up statements.
"This man was very intelligent, and he was a good politician," Conforte told the Reno Gazette Journal in a statement. "In fact, with all his talents, I think he could have been president of the United States if only he hadn't (expletive deleted) with Joe Conforte."
See why Raggio couldn't stand the guy?
Raggio, proud of his own Italian heritage, despised the Sicilian pimp who moved to Northern Nevada to set up shop in 1955.
Elected DA in 1958, Raggio was disgusted by Conforte, who flaunted his hookers in public and tossed money around like candy, bribing law enforcement officials to leave him alone, tipping with $100 bills.
At their first meeting in June 1959, Raggio told Conforte he was banned from Washoe County because he was a vagrant, a pimp living off the earnings of prostitutes.
Archer, who wrote "A Man of His Word," quoted Raggio saying, "I subsequently put out an order that he be arrested when he showed up, though that was often complicated because many members of the law enforcement community considered him a friend and refused."
To counterattack, Conforte decided to set up Raggio and arranged for an underage prostitute to approach Raggio on Nov. 13, 1959, purportedly to handle her divorce. (At that time in Washoe County, a DA could also handle private clients.)
The next day, she asked Raggio to meet her at the Riverside Hotel. She told him she was 22, and they had drinks at the bar; then she said she felt ill and asked him to help her to her room.
The gentlemanly but canny Raggio arranged with a hotel executive to join them when Raggio took the woman back to her room. They all chatted, and the two men left.
Soon afterward, Conforte met with Raggio and told him to back off because the teenager would swear she had had sex with Raggio, ruining his political future.
What Conforte didn't know until his June 1960 extortion trial was that a court-authorized bug captured his profanity-laced threats to Raggio. Eventually, he went to Nevada State Prison for 22 months.
With term limits, there will never be another legislator with 38 years in the Senate, making Raggio, a moderate Republican, the last of his kind in more ways than one.
I knew the cagey senator for 25 years but wish I had known him in 1960 when he was the handsome DA fighting false accusations and crusading against a whoremonger.
- By Jane Ann Morrison
-----
Pictures of Bill Raggio Through the Years
Video - Interview with Bill Raggio
Video - Home Means Nevada performed by the Killers
Video - Harry Reid remembers his friend Bill Raggio
Video - Mark Amodei talks about Bill Raggio
Video - The Execution of Mrs. Potts narrated by Bill Raggio
Video - Interview with Joe Conforte
Video - Bill Raggio and the Rat Pack
Video - Reno in 1943
-----
Thanks to Dennis Diullo for sponsoring this memorial!
William John Raggio, Jr., former Washoe County District Attorney, the longest serving state senator in Nevada history, successful gaming attorney, and one of Nevada's most admired citizens, died of respiratory illness while on vacation in Sydney, Australia on February 24. He was 85.
Born on October 30, 1926 in Reno to William J. and Clara Cardelli Raggio, Bill lived a full and genuine Nevada life and, throughout it all, he did it his way.
Like so many others of his "greatest" generation, Bill was always a gentleman, a caring father, grandfather and great-grandfather, he was a quietly reliable friend to those less fortunate and a man with a clear and resolute voice that frequently reminded us that there are no barriers to what can be accomplished if we summon the will to work together.
Upon his retirement from elected office in 2011 after 56 years in public life, Bill remarked, "There were good times, tough times and fun times. Naturally, there were disagreements but I always felt the final result was always in the best interest of Nevada."
He attended Orvis Ring Elementary School, Northside Junior High School and graduated from Reno High School in 1944. Bill joined the Boy Scouts of America in 1938 and later credited his success to that experience. At a ceremony honoring him as National Distinguished Eagle Scout in 1989, Bill said, "Scouting taught me the importance of principles, morals and achievement. I have received a lot of recognition in my life, but I think the Eagle Scout Badge was the one I cherish most."
At age 17, Bill enlisted in the Navy and graduated from officer training school as a second lieutenant in the Marine Corps at the end of World War II.
He attended Louisiana Tech University, the University of Oklahoma, and the University of Nevada, Reno where he earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1948. While at the University of Nevada, he was a proud member of the Alpha Tau Omega fraternity.
He later obtained a law degree from the Hastings College of Law and pursued a master's degree in law from Boalt Hall School of Law at the University of California, Berkeley. He was admitted to the Nevada Bar in 1951.
Raggio was district attorney in Washoe County from 1958 to 1970 and was named "Outstanding Prosecutor in the United States" in 1965. He was elected president of the National District Attorneys Association in 1967.
He ran unsuccessfully for the United State Senate in 1970, but two years later was elected to the Nevada State Senate representing Washoe County. During his record five decades in the Senate, ten sessions where he served as Majority Leader, Bill worked beside and with seven Nevada Governors. During that time, he developed a reputation as a master of the legislative process, a skilled negotiator and a leading voice for education excellence.
Bill was particularly interested in seeking changes in public education to improve Nevada student performance. He was the key architect of legislation that required high school seniors to pass math, reading and other proficiency tests before they could receive a full-fledged diploma.
Bill was a senior partner at Jones Vargas Law Firm in Reno/Las Vegas; a member of the Board of Trustees of the E. L. Wiegand Foundation; a trustee of the University of Nevada, Reno Foundation and had served on the Board of Directors of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) since 1983 and was its National Chairman in 1993. He was also a former member of the Board of Directors of Sierra Health Services and Archon Corporation.
He was a member of several clubs and organizations including the State Bar of Nevada; Washoe County Bar Association; American Judicature Society; International Academy of Law & Science; American Trial Lawyers Association; Phi Alpha Delta; Elks; Republican State Central Committee; Reno (Host) Lions Club; American Legion; Prospectors; and the American Board of Criminal Lawyers.
Bill was preceded in death by his parents, his first wife Dorothy and his son Mark William. He is survived by his wife Dale, his daughters Leslie Ann Righetti and Tracy Lynn Chew, grandchildren Jennifer Brie Righetti, Michael Christopher Righetti, Meghan (Dave) Clariché Righetti Nesher, Johnathan "Jolly" William Righetti, Sommer Lynn Fernandes, Anthony Alton William Woodring, one great-grandchild Julien David Nesher, and first cousin Edith Raggio.
A Rosary Service will be held at St. Rose of Lima Catholic Church, 100 Bishop Manogue Drive, Reno, NV on Sunday, March 4, 2012 at 7:00 pm.
A Funeral Mass will be held at St. Rose of Lima Catholic Church on Monday, March 5, 2012 at 2:00 pm.
A reception celebrating Bill Raggio's life will be held at The Silver Legacy Casino immediately following the services.
In lieu of flowers and in memory of William J. Raggio, contributions can be made to the University of Nevada, Reno Foundation at Morrill Hall, Reno, NV 89557 or to the Carmelites of Reno, 1950 La Fond Drive, Reno, NV 89509-3099.
-----
Monsignor Leo McFadden said it best: The late Bill Raggio loved his state so much and was so influential in its legislative history that his middle name "must have been Nevada."
More than 1,200 of his fellow Nevadans, including most of the state's political establishment, turned out at Saint Rose of Lima Catholic Church on Monday to honor Raggio, who died Feb. 24 of respiratory illness during a vacation trip to Sydney, Australia, with his wife, Dale. He was 85.
They cried and laughed as McFadden and other speakers eulogized the man who had served a record 38 years as a Republican senator from Reno, including 10 legislative sessions as Senate majority leader. He retired from the Legislature in January 2011 and was elected to the Senate Hall of Fame in April.
During the two-hour funeral, Gov. Brian Sandoval called Raggio "one of the greatest men we all have ever known."
"His impact touched every man, woman and child in Nevada. He told me, 'If you only do what you believe is right, you never can do wrong.' "
Raggio will be known as the father of the law that requires high school students to pass proficiency tests to secure diplomas and the constitutional amendment that limits legislative sessions to 120 days every other year. A political moderate who was willing to compromise with Democrats, he engineered the deal in 2009 that led to $800 million in temporary tax increases. Most of those increases were extended by Sandoval and the Legislature in 2011, averting a protracted special session.
Sandoval also called Raggio the "last great patriarch" of Nevada politics and asked the audience, including legislative leaders of both parties, to "follow his example."
The funeral was both solemn and humorous. A color guard of Marines and police officers carried the closed casket into the church. Raggio was a second lieutenant in the Marine Corps at the end of World War II. A 21-gun salute sounded at the end of the service. Fourteen members of the Catholic clergy participated in the funeral Mass, which included communion for fellow church members of the audience.
When the hearse carried the remains away after the service, it passed under a huge American flag draped at the top of ladders on firetrucks on each side of the highway.
But there was even more levity than sorrow. Richard Bryan, a Democrat who formerly served as governor and U.S. senator, remembered going on a goodwill trip to China with Raggio in 1978, the year Bryan ran for state attorney general. As a practical joke, Raggio draped a "Bryan For Attorney General" sign over the Great Wall of China. An embarrassed Bryan hurriedly ripped the sign as security guards approached and while Raggio laughed in the distance.
Raymond "Skip" Avansino remembered he once asked Raggio why he had attended so many funerals, often delivering the eulogy.
Paraphrasing Yogi Berra, Raggio told him he went to funerals for other people because if he didn't, "they won't go to mine."
"Bill," he said, " the church is full."
McFadden joined in the humor. He remembered how Raggio would give him the sign of cutting his neck when he thought the religious service was going too long.
"I got the message," added McFadden, noting Raggio was a man of faith who now has "peace everlasting."
Among the members of the audience were U.S. Sen. Dean Heller, R-Nev., state Senate Majority Leader Steven Horsford, D-Las Vegas, Senate Minority Leader Mike McGinness, R-Fallon, Senate caucus leaders Mo Denis, D-Las Vegas, and Michael Roberson, R-Las Vegas, former Assembly Speaker Barbara Buckley, D-Las Vegas, and former U.S. Rep. Dina Titus, who long served as state Senate Democratic leader when Raggio was the upper house's Republican leader.
The most touching tributes to Raggio came from his daughters, Tracy Raggio Chew and Leslie Raggio Righetti. Chew read the familiar passages of Ecclesiastes, saying for every time there is a season, including "a time to be born and a time to die."
Righetti mentioned how Raggio once told her he wished he could have captured rain from California and taken it to Nevada to green up the arid state.
"Bill, my dad, was the rain that made it better for all of us," said Righetti, who sang the silly campaign song her father had used in his 1970 political campaign for the U.S. Senate, the second of three statewide races he lost.
She also joked how her father hogged the family's only bathroom in the morning as she was growing up so that he could spend more time blow-drying his famous auburn hair.
All six of Raggio's grandchildren -- Jennifer Righetti, Johnathan Righetti, Meghan Righetti Nesher, Sommer Fernandes, Michael Righetti and Anthony Woodring -- participated in the service.
Raggio's first wife, Dorothy, died in 1998 after 49 years of marriage. His son, Mark, died in 2004. Raggio married his second wife, Dale, in 2003.
Fitting for a man who served his state for so long, the service concluded when the audience sang "Home Means Nevada," the state song.
By Ed Vogel
-----
Bill Raggio - Crusading Against A Whoremonger
March 23, 1960: Bill Raggio burned down Joe Conforte's whorehouse.
He didn't actually light the fire, and in later years in a biography by Michael Archer, he described his role as "spectator."
That's not how Northern Nevada newspapers characterized it at the time when the then-Washoe County district attorney gained national notoriety for torching the Triangle Ranch brothel, even if firefighters did the actual torching.
The Triangle Ranch covered pieces of Storey, Washoe and Lyon counties, so the DA in Storey County, with Raggio's backing, obtained a judge's approval to burn the joint, but it was Raggio who was dubbed Nevada's brothel-burning DA.
The mutual loathing between Raggio and Conforte had caused Conforte to try to set up Raggio with a 17-year-old prostitute in November 1959, sparking the brothel burning four months later.
The flurry of remembrances following Raggio's death Thursday focused heavily on his Senate years. His statesmanship. His legendary support of higher education. His making sure that Northern Nevada received more than its fair share of state tax dollars. His ability to bring legislators to an agreement, no matter how uneasy.
But Raggio's 12 years as Washoe County DA were his more colorful years, launching an enmity with Conforte that lasted until Raggio's death at 85.
Conforte, now living the high life in Brazil to avoid federal tax charges, even joined the politicians in offering up statements.
"This man was very intelligent, and he was a good politician," Conforte told the Reno Gazette Journal in a statement. "In fact, with all his talents, I think he could have been president of the United States if only he hadn't (expletive deleted) with Joe Conforte."
See why Raggio couldn't stand the guy?
Raggio, proud of his own Italian heritage, despised the Sicilian pimp who moved to Northern Nevada to set up shop in 1955.
Elected DA in 1958, Raggio was disgusted by Conforte, who flaunted his hookers in public and tossed money around like candy, bribing law enforcement officials to leave him alone, tipping with $100 bills.
At their first meeting in June 1959, Raggio told Conforte he was banned from Washoe County because he was a vagrant, a pimp living off the earnings of prostitutes.
Archer, who wrote "A Man of His Word," quoted Raggio saying, "I subsequently put out an order that he be arrested when he showed up, though that was often complicated because many members of the law enforcement community considered him a friend and refused."
To counterattack, Conforte decided to set up Raggio and arranged for an underage prostitute to approach Raggio on Nov. 13, 1959, purportedly to handle her divorce. (At that time in Washoe County, a DA could also handle private clients.)
The next day, she asked Raggio to meet her at the Riverside Hotel. She told him she was 22, and they had drinks at the bar; then she said she felt ill and asked him to help her to her room.
The gentlemanly but canny Raggio arranged with a hotel executive to join them when Raggio took the woman back to her room. They all chatted, and the two men left.
Soon afterward, Conforte met with Raggio and told him to back off because the teenager would swear she had had sex with Raggio, ruining his political future.
What Conforte didn't know until his June 1960 extortion trial was that a court-authorized bug captured his profanity-laced threats to Raggio. Eventually, he went to Nevada State Prison for 22 months.
With term limits, there will never be another legislator with 38 years in the Senate, making Raggio, a moderate Republican, the last of his kind in more ways than one.
I knew the cagey senator for 25 years but wish I had known him in 1960 when he was the handsome DA fighting false accusations and crusading against a whoremonger.
- By Jane Ann Morrison
-----
Pictures of Bill Raggio Through the Years
Video - Interview with Bill Raggio
Video - Home Means Nevada performed by the Killers
Video - Harry Reid remembers his friend Bill Raggio
Video - Mark Amodei talks about Bill Raggio
Video - The Execution of Mrs. Potts narrated by Bill Raggio
Video - Interview with Joe Conforte
Video - Bill Raggio and the Rat Pack
Video - Reno in 1943
-----
Thanks to Dennis Diullo for sponsoring this memorial!
Born on October 30, 1926 in Reno to William J. and Clara Cardelli Raggio, Bill lived a full and genuine Nevada life and, throughout it all, he did it his way.
Like so many others of his "greatest" generation, Bill was always a gentleman, a caring father, grandfather and great-grandfather, he was a quietly reliable friend to those less fortunate and a man with a clear and resolute voice that frequently reminded us that there are no barriers to what can be accomplished if we summon the will to work together.
Upon his retirement from elected office in 2011 after 56 years in public life, Bill remarked, "There were good times, tough times and fun times. Naturally, there were disagreements but I always felt the final result was always in the best interest of Nevada."
He attended Orvis Ring Elementary School, Northside Junior High School and graduated from Reno High School in 1944. Bill joined the Boy Scouts of America in 1938 and later credited his success to that experience. At a ceremony honoring him as National Distinguished Eagle Scout in 1989, Bill said, "Scouting taught me the importance of principles, morals and achievement. I have received a lot of recognition in my life, but I think the Eagle Scout Badge was the one I cherish most."
At age 17, Bill enlisted in the Navy and graduated from officer training school as a second lieutenant in the Marine Corps at the end of World War II.
He attended Louisiana Tech University, the University of Oklahoma, and the University of Nevada, Reno where he earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1948. While at the University of Nevada, he was a proud member of the Alpha Tau Omega fraternity.
He later obtained a law degree from the Hastings College of Law and pursued a master's degree in law from Boalt Hall School of Law at the University of California, Berkeley. He was admitted to the Nevada Bar in 1951.
Raggio was district attorney in Washoe County from 1958 to 1970 and was named "Outstanding Prosecutor in the United States" in 1965. He was elected president of the National District Attorneys Association in 1967.
He ran unsuccessfully for the United State Senate in 1970, but two years later was elected to the Nevada State Senate representing Washoe County. During his record five decades in the Senate, ten sessions where he served as Majority Leader, Bill worked beside and with seven Nevada Governors. During that time, he developed a reputation as a master of the legislative process, a skilled negotiator and a leading voice for education excellence.
Bill was particularly interested in seeking changes in public education to improve Nevada student performance. He was the key architect of legislation that required high school seniors to pass math, reading and other proficiency tests before they could receive a full-fledged diploma.
Bill was a senior partner at Jones Vargas Law Firm in Reno/Las Vegas; a member of the Board of Trustees of the E. L. Wiegand Foundation; a trustee of the University of Nevada, Reno Foundation and had served on the Board of Directors of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) since 1983 and was its National Chairman in 1993. He was also a former member of the Board of Directors of Sierra Health Services and Archon Corporation.
He was a member of several clubs and organizations including the State Bar of Nevada; Washoe County Bar Association; American Judicature Society; International Academy of Law & Science; American Trial Lawyers Association; Phi Alpha Delta; Elks; Republican State Central Committee; Reno (Host) Lions Club; American Legion; Prospectors; and the American Board of Criminal Lawyers.
Bill was preceded in death by his parents, his first wife Dorothy and his son Mark William. He is survived by his wife Dale, his daughters Leslie Ann Righetti and Tracy Lynn Chew, grandchildren Jennifer Brie Righetti, Michael Christopher Righetti, Meghan (Dave) Clariché Righetti Nesher, Johnathan "Jolly" William Righetti, Sommer Lynn Fernandes, Anthony Alton William Woodring, one great-grandchild Julien David Nesher, and first cousin Edith Raggio.
A Rosary Service will be held at St. Rose of Lima Catholic Church, 100 Bishop Manogue Drive, Reno, NV on Sunday, March 4, 2012 at 7:00 pm.
A Funeral Mass will be held at St. Rose of Lima Catholic Church on Monday, March 5, 2012 at 2:00 pm.
A reception celebrating Bill Raggio's life will be held at The Silver Legacy Casino immediately following the services.
In lieu of flowers and in memory of William J. Raggio, contributions can be made to the University of Nevada, Reno Foundation at Morrill Hall, Reno, NV 89557 or to the Carmelites of Reno, 1950 La Fond Drive, Reno, NV 89509-3099.
-----
Monsignor Leo McFadden said it best: The late Bill Raggio loved his state so much and was so influential in its legislative history that his middle name "must have been Nevada."
More than 1,200 of his fellow Nevadans, including most of the state's political establishment, turned out at Saint Rose of Lima Catholic Church on Monday to honor Raggio, who died Feb. 24 of respiratory illness during a vacation trip to Sydney, Australia, with his wife, Dale. He was 85.
They cried and laughed as McFadden and other speakers eulogized the man who had served a record 38 years as a Republican senator from Reno, including 10 legislative sessions as Senate majority leader. He retired from the Legislature in January 2011 and was elected to the Senate Hall of Fame in April.
During the two-hour funeral, Gov. Brian Sandoval called Raggio "one of the greatest men we all have ever known."
"His impact touched every man, woman and child in Nevada. He told me, 'If you only do what you believe is right, you never can do wrong.' "
Raggio will be known as the father of the law that requires high school students to pass proficiency tests to secure diplomas and the constitutional amendment that limits legislative sessions to 120 days every other year. A political moderate who was willing to compromise with Democrats, he engineered the deal in 2009 that led to $800 million in temporary tax increases. Most of those increases were extended by Sandoval and the Legislature in 2011, averting a protracted special session.
Sandoval also called Raggio the "last great patriarch" of Nevada politics and asked the audience, including legislative leaders of both parties, to "follow his example."
The funeral was both solemn and humorous. A color guard of Marines and police officers carried the closed casket into the church. Raggio was a second lieutenant in the Marine Corps at the end of World War II. A 21-gun salute sounded at the end of the service. Fourteen members of the Catholic clergy participated in the funeral Mass, which included communion for fellow church members of the audience.
When the hearse carried the remains away after the service, it passed under a huge American flag draped at the top of ladders on firetrucks on each side of the highway.
But there was even more levity than sorrow. Richard Bryan, a Democrat who formerly served as governor and U.S. senator, remembered going on a goodwill trip to China with Raggio in 1978, the year Bryan ran for state attorney general. As a practical joke, Raggio draped a "Bryan For Attorney General" sign over the Great Wall of China. An embarrassed Bryan hurriedly ripped the sign as security guards approached and while Raggio laughed in the distance.
Raymond "Skip" Avansino remembered he once asked Raggio why he had attended so many funerals, often delivering the eulogy.
Paraphrasing Yogi Berra, Raggio told him he went to funerals for other people because if he didn't, "they won't go to mine."
"Bill," he said, " the church is full."
McFadden joined in the humor. He remembered how Raggio would give him the sign of cutting his neck when he thought the religious service was going too long.
"I got the message," added McFadden, noting Raggio was a man of faith who now has "peace everlasting."
Among the members of the audience were U.S. Sen. Dean Heller, R-Nev., state Senate Majority Leader Steven Horsford, D-Las Vegas, Senate Minority Leader Mike McGinness, R-Fallon, Senate caucus leaders Mo Denis, D-Las Vegas, and Michael Roberson, R-Las Vegas, former Assembly Speaker Barbara Buckley, D-Las Vegas, and former U.S. Rep. Dina Titus, who long served as state Senate Democratic leader when Raggio was the upper house's Republican leader.
The most touching tributes to Raggio came from his daughters, Tracy Raggio Chew and Leslie Raggio Righetti. Chew read the familiar passages of Ecclesiastes, saying for every time there is a season, including "a time to be born and a time to die."
Righetti mentioned how Raggio once told her he wished he could have captured rain from California and taken it to Nevada to green up the arid state.
"Bill, my dad, was the rain that made it better for all of us," said Righetti, who sang the silly campaign song her father had used in his 1970 political campaign for the U.S. Senate, the second of three statewide races he lost.
She also joked how her father hogged the family's only bathroom in the morning as she was growing up so that he could spend more time blow-drying his famous auburn hair.
All six of Raggio's grandchildren -- Jennifer Righetti, Johnathan Righetti, Meghan Righetti Nesher, Sommer Fernandes, Michael Righetti and Anthony Woodring -- participated in the service.
Raggio's first wife, Dorothy, died in 1998 after 49 years of marriage. His son, Mark, died in 2004. Raggio married his second wife, Dale, in 2003.
Fitting for a man who served his state for so long, the service concluded when the audience sang "Home Means Nevada," the state song.
By Ed Vogel
-----
Bill Raggio - Crusading Against A Whoremonger
March 23, 1960: Bill Raggio burned down Joe Conforte's whorehouse.
He didn't actually light the fire, and in later years in a biography by Michael Archer, he described his role as "spectator."
That's not how Northern Nevada newspapers characterized it at the time when the then-Washoe County district attorney gained national notoriety for torching the Triangle Ranch brothel, even if firefighters did the actual torching.
The Triangle Ranch covered pieces of Storey, Washoe and Lyon counties, so the DA in Storey County, with Raggio's backing, obtained a judge's approval to burn the joint, but it was Raggio who was dubbed Nevada's brothel-burning DA.
The mutual loathing between Raggio and Conforte had caused Conforte to try to set up Raggio with a 17-year-old prostitute in November 1959, sparking the brothel burning four months later.
The flurry of remembrances following Raggio's death Thursday focused heavily on his Senate years. His statesmanship. His legendary support of higher education. His making sure that Northern Nevada received more than its fair share of state tax dollars. His ability to bring legislators to an agreement, no matter how uneasy.
But Raggio's 12 years as Washoe County DA were his more colorful years, launching an enmity with Conforte that lasted until Raggio's death at 85.
Conforte, now living the high life in Brazil to avoid federal tax charges, even joined the politicians in offering up statements.
"This man was very intelligent, and he was a good politician," Conforte told the Reno Gazette Journal in a statement. "In fact, with all his talents, I think he could have been president of the United States if only he hadn't (expletive deleted) with Joe Conforte."
See why Raggio couldn't stand the guy?
Raggio, proud of his own Italian heritage, despised the Sicilian pimp who moved to Northern Nevada to set up shop in 1955.
Elected DA in 1958, Raggio was disgusted by Conforte, who flaunted his hookers in public and tossed money around like candy, bribing law enforcement officials to leave him alone, tipping with $100 bills.
At their first meeting in June 1959, Raggio told Conforte he was banned from Washoe County because he was a vagrant, a pimp living off the earnings of prostitutes.
Archer, who wrote "A Man of His Word," quoted Raggio saying, "I subsequently put out an order that he be arrested when he showed up, though that was often complicated because many members of the law enforcement community considered him a friend and refused."
To counterattack, Conforte decided to set up Raggio and arranged for an underage prostitute to approach Raggio on Nov. 13, 1959, purportedly to handle her divorce. (At that time in Washoe County, a DA could also handle private clients.)
The next day, she asked Raggio to meet her at the Riverside Hotel. She told him she was 22, and they had drinks at the bar; then she said she felt ill and asked him to help her to her room.
The gentlemanly but canny Raggio arranged with a hotel executive to join them when Raggio took the woman back to her room. They all chatted, and the two men left.
Soon afterward, Conforte met with Raggio and told him to back off because the teenager would swear she had had sex with Raggio, ruining his political future.
What Conforte didn't know until his June 1960 extortion trial was that a court-authorized bug captured his profanity-laced threats to Raggio. Eventually, he went to Nevada State Prison for 22 months.
With term limits, there will never be another legislator with 38 years in the Senate, making Raggio, a moderate Republican, the last of his kind in more ways than one.
I knew the cagey senator for 25 years but wish I had known him in 1960 when he was the handsome DA fighting false accusations and crusading against a whoremonger.
- By Jane Ann Morrison
-----
Pictures of Bill Raggio Through the Years
Video - Interview with Bill Raggio
Video - Home Means Nevada performed by the Killers
Video - Harry Reid remembers his friend Bill Raggio
Video - Mark Amodei talks about Bill Raggio
Video - The Execution of Mrs. Potts narrated by Bill Raggio
Video - Interview with Joe Conforte
Video - Bill Raggio and the Rat Pack
Video - Reno in 1943
-----
Thanks to Dennis Diullo for sponsoring this memorial!
Inscription
STATESMAN, LEADER, FRIEND
WILLIAM J. RAGGIO
OCTOBER 30, 1926 - FEBRUARY 24, 2012
"WE SHALL NOT LOOK ON HIS LIKE AGAIN"
-HAMLET
Family Members
Children
