Ronald Reagan will have many legacies on the worldwide stage, but the one that will stand out forever for Northern Nevada is his work in protecting the jewel of the Sierra Nevada, Lake Tahoe.
When then-governor of California Reagan and his Nevada counterpart, Paul Laxalt, put in motion in the 1960s the effort that would become the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency, they saw a responsibility and a vision - and it was far from the vision they wanted.
"Shortly after taking office," Laxalt wrote in his autobiography, "I talked to Ron Reagan, who had just been elected governor of California. I mentioned to him my increasing concern about overdevelopment at Tahoe, and the fact that some people had told me that unless something was done, Tahoe could 'turn gray' on our watch. We both decided that this was not the kind of legacy we wanted to leave."
The great irony, of course, was that the two Republican conservatives would embrace a plan for a regional governing agency taking over the policy-making role from local governments. It was, Laxalt admitted, "the abomination of any good conservative."
But the TRPA carries some of the hallmarks of what would later be the Reagan presidency. Have a vision, figure out the simplest, most straightforward means of accomplishing it, and then provide the leadership to make it happen.
In the case of Lake Tahoe, the vision was of a clear-blue, wooded paradise. By creating one overarching agency, the legislatures of California and Nevada were able to slice through the impenetrable web of several dozen agencies in the two states who had their thumbs in Tahoe.
The leadership came in championing a process that, four decades later, remains controversial - but also remains the best and only hope Lake Tahoe has for eternal survival. It was an environmental milestone.
His battles with Communism, his tax cuts and Reagonomics, his "Morning Again in America" optimism became Reagan's symbols in Washington, D.C. California, too, has plenty of memories. For Nevada, perhaps a blue Tahoe is the one that will last the longest.
