Farewell to Guy Clifton, a Nevada legend

Guy Clifton was the person The R-C needed when it was needed most.

On Saturday, I learned he died. He’d had a hard year with a hospitalization and hospice.

He came to The R-C from the North Lake Tahoe Bonanza in May 1989 bringing new reporter Rick Hoover with him. Hoover interned at the Bonanza, as did fellow UNR and Sagebrush alum R-C photographer Chris Tumbusch.

At the time, newspapers were undergoing an internal revolution. Looking back over the last three and a half decades, that’s pretty much been the norm.

That time, it was the conversion to desk-top publishing, using Macs and laser printers to replace terminals and phototypesetters.

People Editor Joyce Hollister said she appreciated Clifton’s kindness and patience with her, as she and the rest of the staff were learning the new system.

Three months later, Clifton hired me from another Swift newspaper, The Daily Independent in Ridgecrest. I’d been working the emergency services beat in the desert for 14 months and was covering a horrific fatal collision or more a week, a handful of murders and a fire in my own newspaper.

In short, I was rough trade, “wrote” hard and put away wet. It took me a long time to recognize it, but Clifton was patient with me, too.

Clifton left The R-C in August 1990.He worked for the Reno Gazette-Journal from 1994 to 2016, where his rodeo coverage became legendary.

The R-C is publishing several photos of the Douglas County Rodeo today with him in mind.

In 1998, I was up for a position at the RGJ as a computer systems editor. I was working at the Nevada Appeal at the time, and received enough incentive to stand pat. I don’t know if the letter I wrote to the news editor had any impact, but I told him that Clifton was a better fit for the job. He always was.

Kurt Hildebrand is editor of The Record-Courier because of Guy Clifton, may he rest in peace.