Longtime Nevada journalist Dennis Myers dies at 70

RENO — Veteran Nevada journalist Dennis Myers, who was known for his relentless pursuit of truth and his deep knowledge of the state’s political histories, died Monday after suffering a massive stroke last week. He was 70.

Myers was a longtime newsman in Northern Nevada whose resume included two Reno television stations and bylines in numerous publications, including the Las Vegas Business Press and Pahrump Valley Times, both owned by the Las Vegas Review-Journal. But Myers was most known for his roughly two decades as the news editor of the weekly Reno News and Review, where he had worked up until his death.

To his longtime friend and former Nevada System of Higher Education Regent Howard Rosenberg, Myers was “a voice of reason” for the state and especially Northern Nevada.

Sheila Leslie saw Myers through multiple lenses over the years. The former Nevada lawmaker and current News and Review columnist remembers that, during her freshman year in the Assembly in 1999, she was pushing a bill for entertainer Jerry Lewis to add harsher penalties to the state’s aggravated stalking laws.

Legislature leadership got excited when it became know that Lewis planned to travel to Carson City to speak in favor of the bill, and decided on the rare move to hold hearing before the entire Assembly, Leslie said.

Myers, however, was not excited, and let Leslie know about it during an exchange in her office.

“Dennis was really mad about it,” Leslie said.

Myers had no issue with the bill, but rather with lawmakers bending the rules for a celebrity.

“He was so offended by the rules being changed to give Jerry Lewis more attention than a woman who was being stalked. It really epitomizes his strong moral code, his ethics,” Leslie said. “And he took that to his reporting. You can’t get rid of that stuff.”

One of Myers’s most prominent stories came in 2014 when he wrote about racist and homophobic columns penned by then-Assemblyman Ira Hansen over the years for a Sparks newspaper. Hansen had been chosen by his Republican peers as speaker following the 2014 elections, but was forced to decline the promotion after Myers’ story ran.

“He had no fears of the powers that be, and he just wasn’t intimidated by anyone,” said Myers’ former longtime colleague D. Brian Burghart.

Myers moved to Nevada as a child. He graduated from Reno High School and later attended the University of Nevada, Reno. He had a two-year stint working as the chief of staff to Nevada Secretary of State Frankie Sue Del Papa from 1987-1988, but Myers would spend the vast majority of his adult life working as a journalist in Northern Nevada.

And over those years, Myers absorbed the political happenings like a sponge. And that deep-rooted knowledge, his friends said, is something that the community and state as a whole will miss.

“He was a walking encyclopedia of Nevada history, especially Nevada’s political history,” Leslie said.

“You say nobody is not replaceable. Dennis Myers is not replaceable,” said Burghart

Myers was deemed brain dead following the stroke but was kept on life support through the weekend so that his organs could be donated. He was honored in an organ walk at Renown Regional Medical Center, and a match had been found for his liver, Rosenberg said.

“He would have been delighted at that, I know,” Rosenberg said.

Contact Capital Bureau Chief Colton Lochhead at clochhead@reviejwournal.com or 775-461-3820. Follow @ColtonLochhead on Twitter.