Countdown to 2000

Paper: Carson City Daily Appeal and Carson City News - 60 days to the millennium - Tuesday, Jan. 3, 1939

Publisher: Amos O. Buckner

Editor: Elbert T. Clyde

Address: 102 E. Second St.

Communications intended for publication must either be signed by the writer or the writer's name must be filed in this office.

Published daily except Sunday at Carson City.

Subscription Rates: One month by carrier $1, one month by mail $.75.

Advertising rates on application.

REWARD

A reward of $10 will be paid for information leading to the arrest and conviction of persons stealing the APPEAL from the premises of a subscriber.

Football Scores in this edition of the Carson City Daily Appeal for Jan. 3, 1939, the first of the new year reported, that Southern California had beaten Duke 7-3 at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, Calif.

The paper took a three-day holiday for the new year and didn't print an edition on Jan. 1 or 2.

Other scores were:

Sugar Bowl, New Orleans- Texas Christian 15, Carnegie Tech 7.

Orange Bowl, Miami-Tennessee 17, Oklahoma 0.

Cotton Bowl, Dallas-St. Mary's 20, Texas Tech 13.

Sun Bowl, El Paso, Tex.-Utah 26, New Mexico 0.

East-West, San Francisco-West 14, East 0.

North-South, Montgomery, Ala.-North 7, South 0.

Pineapple Bowl-Honolulu - U. C. L. A. 32, U. of Hawaii 7.

Archie Pozzi Jr., a former state senator, was a college student at the University of Washington at the time. He and a friend, Dan Franks Jr. , had journeyed to San Francisco for Pozzi's yearly tradition of watching the East-West game.

Pozzi says he doesn't remember the details surrounding the following article, but doesn't dispute that it happened.

Under the headline "Robbed in Hotel Room during Night" the paper reported:

When Archie Pozzi Jr. and Dan Franks Jr. awakened in their hotel room in San Francisco yesterday morning they discovered that the room had been entered and their loose change had been stolen.

Young Pozzi's wallet containing checks membership cards, etc., was likewise missing. The bank was immediately notified to stop payment on the checks.

The boys returned to Carson last night. Early this morning Archie Pozzi Jr. left to Seattle to resume his studies at the University of Washington.

"I usually came home for vacation and when I was home I always went to San Francisco to the East-West game," Pozzi said.

In the same edition, his father Archie Pozzi Sr. was mentioned as chairman of the finance committee for the inaugural ball of Gov. Edward P. Carville.

The headline read: "Gets Ticket No. 1 For Inaugural Ball." The paper said: "The sale of tickets to the 1939 inaugural ball in this area officially opened this forenoon when Chairman N.C. Brown of the committee presented ticket No. 1 with the compliments of the committee to Governor E. P. Carville soon after the latter's inauguration."

Members of the committee with Brown in the governor's office for the presentation were Secretary Raby J. Newton and Chairman Archie Pozzi for the finance committee.

Gov. Carville expressed his thanks for the courtesy and his interest in the coming event.

Others present at the presentation were Chief Justice E. J. L. Tuber, Lieutenant Governor Maurice j. Sullivan and Miles Pike.

Both father and son have long histories of public service in Carson City and for the state of Nevada.

Pozzi Sr. served twice as an Ormsby County Commissioner in 1928 serving for about 10 years, Pozzi Jr. said.

He ran and was elected again 1948, but suffered a stroke in 1950, but remained in office until 1952.

Pozzi Jr. said he was in high school when his father served as commissioner and didn't pay much attention to his father's political career.

Pozzi Jr. graduated from Carson High School in 1936 and the University of Washington in 1941. He started at the university after taking a 15 month break to work at his father's Ford car dealership in downtown Carson.

The small town atmosphere in Carson in those days left a lot o from for some good-natured pranks.

Pozzi Jr. said "one day I was down to open up and my dad was standing outside near the curb when all of a sudden someone slammed on their brakes. This was after dad had his stroke and I was afraid he'd wandered out into the street. But I looked and he wasn't in the street. Soon the car came back and some guys started talking to my dad. I saw him point to me which meant he could understand what they were saying.

"Well it was just some guys who had been duck hunting and wanted to give my dad ducks. So he told me to put them in the wash rack. Then some guy came to get gas and my dad had him pick the feathers. Then my cousin came by cleaned the ducks. Then my dad got me to give him a ride to the house and he had my mother cook 'em.

"He didn't do any work at all except he was the boss."

At this time the Pozzis lived near the governor's mansion.

"A lot of time the governor's walked to work in those days," he said. "I be going to open the shop and say "hey want a ride.' I took a lot of governors to work in the morning, Kirman, Balzar, Carville. They didn't have state cars for the governors then."

Pozzi Sr. and George Meyers, of the hardware store, had quite a sparring relationship always ribbing each other, Pozzi Jr. said.

"They were always putting up notes in those show windows on main street. One time my dad put a note that George Meyers, owner of all the nuts and bolts in town was the biggest nut of them all.

"Another time, my dad was the chairman of the draft board. Well Meyers was too old to go into the service, but my dad had the secretary type up a draft notice telling him to report to Salt Lake City for service. Well when he got that he was mad. He barreled into the basement of the courthouse (southwest corner of Musser and Carson streets) and George he was as upset as the devil, but my dad wasn't there. He'd planned not to be be there of course. Those old guys had a lot of fun."

After high school when I was working for my dad, my uncle was from Seattle and came to visit and finally convinced my father to let me come live with him and go to school.

"When I got out of high school my dad, who went to school in Switzerland said he'd never gotten more than a seventh grade education and that I'd already got five more years of school than he had and it was time for me to go to work," Pozzi said.

Pozzi entered school and stayed for a year and a half until his 11-year-old cousin "who was the first hippie in the world drove me out of Seattle. My mother tried to get me back to school. I finally went back to school, but I moved to campus."

Pozzi Sr. opened the dealership in 1922 after serving in WWI.

Pozzi Jr. said he had tuberculosis and doctors told him to find a higher, drier climate.

In 1936, Pozzi moved his first dealership, which was located on Carson and Sixth streets, just south of the Ormsby House to across the street to the east where the extra parking lot for the Ormsby House is today.

Though the Pozzi Family has had a long history of Ford dealerships in town they weren't the first.

A man named Frank Meder had the first dealership .

"Where the Nugget is now there was the Eagles Lodge on the (north) end, a meat market, Meder's garage, a gambling joint and an ice cream joint," Pozzi said. "All in that one block."

Pozzi Jr. made his first try for elected office in 1954 making a successful bid for the Assembly a position he served from 1954 until 1964 running for re-election in 1956, 1958, 1960, 1962 and 1964. In 1966, he made a successful run for the state senate. He was re-elected in 1970, but lost in 1974.

Since then he's been busy with community service serving as a Carson City Regional Planning commission for more than a decade under mayors Dan Flammer, Marv Teixeira, but was "knocked off" by current Mayor Ray Masayko.

Pozzi's legislative career included successes such as helping to bring the community college system to Carson City, the consolidation of Carson City and Ormsby County and helping state employees earn a livable wage.

"I was on the band wagon for getting the community college in Carson," he said. "Initiating the state community college system early on was tough sledding. Then just before Howard Hughes died he called the governor in and said I'll give you $200,000 for 20 years. It really blossomed after that.

"I introduced the bill that consolidated the City of Carson and Ormsby County. that had to go to a statewide vote because we changed the (state) constitution.

"And I tried to take care of my friends who were state workers with their pay raises."

Throughout all this, Pozzi remained a bachelor. His wife, Helen, of eight years was a girl he'd met nearly 50 years ago as a college student in Washington.

"I was single around town here," he said. "I recognized her name at a reunion and called her. I forgot to get the zip code so I couldn't send her a note. We started talking on the phone the first time for about five minutes, then the second time for six minutes then it got up to 30-35 minutes of talking on the telephone."

Eight years later, they live in both Carson and Tacoma Wash.

Pozzi served in the U.S. Navy during WWII from 1943 to 1946 on troop transport ships leaving San Diego and San Francisco to "whatever little island. I was the sea-sickest sailer you ever had. Several times I thought about jumping over board. I would have taken any God-forsaken island out there rather than a ship."