Tonopah native, Barbara Cavanaugh was attending high school in San Francisco when she received word that her home in Tonopah had burned to the ground. Her parents moved to Reno where Barbara graduated from the University of Nevada Reno with a bachelor’s degree and a then a master’s degree in Political Science. Now married, Barbara headed off to the University of Utah with her youngest child in tow, to obtain a PhD in Behavioral Health Communications. As Dr. Barbara Thornton, she taught ethics and communications for nearly 38 years and retired as faculty emeritus at the University of Nevada, Reno in 2005. Barbara has received both the Distinguished Faculty and Distinguished Nevadan awards. With her husband, they established the Thornton Peace Prize at University of Nevada Reno, and with her brother, John Cavanaugh, established the Cavanaugh Community Volunteer Award. Barbara is also a co-founder of the Nevada Women’s Fund.
Washoe County
Suenaga, Florence – Carson City, Carson City
Florence was the thirteen-year-old daughter of Japanese immigrant parents living a typical American life at the start of WWII. Shortly after December 7, 1941, the family was uprooted from their Gilroy, California farm, taken to the local fairgrounds and then transported to a Japanese Internment camp in Poston, Arizona. Florence’s detailed story of WWII internment […]
Satre, Jennifer – Reno, Washoe
Jennifer first moved to Reno from California in 1975. Her record of community service in Reno was interrupted by a nine-year hiatus as a resident of Memphis, Tennessee in 1991, where she served on many committees and boards in that city. Returning to Reno in 1999, Jennifer quickly resumed her community involvement. Some of her […]
Mullins, Bertha – Reno, Washoe
Bertha Mullins’ father brought his family to Nevada where he found work at the Hawthorne Army Depot during WWII. The family, then moved to Reno where she attended local schools and graduated from University of Nevada Reno. Bertha helped develop and implemented a community health center for low income and disadvantaged families in northeast Reno, […]
Fox, Ada (Sister Michael Fox) – Reno, Washoe
Sister Michael entered the Carmelite Monastery of the Resurrection in Indianapolis, Indiana and transferred to Nevada in 1956 to help in the building of the Carmel of Reno Order, which had been established just two years before. Although she intended to stay just one year, now more than sixty years later she is still here. […]