Memorial event honors E. Parry Thomas, legacy
E. Parry Thomas, an icon within the community is gone, but his vision and efforts will live forever, people who knew him said Tuesday at a memorial in a ballroom at Encore.
Thomas, a local banker who lent money to casinos to help them expand, died Aug. 26 at his Hailey, Idaho, horse ranch. He was 95.
“If in life, you are pursuing your passion and doing it in a creative constructive way, giving whatever pursuit it was your best and honest effort. He was always available for support and encouragement,” Roger Thomas said of his father.
Thomas worked for Continental Bank & Trust Co. of Salt Lake City. Walter Cosgriff, who led Continental Bank, also owned a stake in the Bank of Las Vegas, which opened in 1954.
The Bank of Las Vegas wasn’t doing well, so Cosgriff sent Thomas to determine if the bank should be closed. Thomas thought the bank had potential and should stay open. He was assigned to work there full time.
By the early 1960s, a problem was on the horizon. All casinos in Nevada were licensed to individuals — Nevada law prohibited corporations from operating casinos. That prompted a separate problem: As people with licenses grew older or died, their estates became encumbered, and there was no way to buy them out. The only resolution was to get corporate gaming. Thomas helped push through a law to make corporate ownership possible.
Thomas A. Thomas said his father was interwoven into the lives of many important and prominent Las Vegans including Benny Binion, Howard Hughes, Hank Greenspun, Sam Boyd, Larry Ruvo, Elaine Wynn and Steve Wynn.
“They shared their financial secrets with my dad and in many cases the intimate details of their lives. They gave my dad their trust, and he kept their confidences,” he said.
Thomas and Jerome “Jerry” Mack became business partners and longtime friends whose names still remain linked with the Thomas & Mack Center on the UNLV campus.
“He lived by a quote from the book of Luke — where much is given, much is required,” Steven Thomas said about his father. “He spent his life generously giving back.”
Thomas was described as a “hero” by his son Peter Thomas.
“I’ve looked up to him, learned from him and tried to be like him my entire life,” he said.
When Thomas was no longer needed daily in Las Vegas, he retired. He spent his retirement with family.
“He decided he owed his retirement to my mother, ” his daughter Jane Thomas Sturdivant said. “Our dad loved Catalina Island. Our family spent many summers weekends there.”
Thomas and his wife, Peggy, loved dressage. He enjoyed watching many of his horses bring home medals, Sturdivant said.
The moment she will cherish most, she said, was seeing her dad’s expression when his horse and that horse’s trainer rode at the Thomas & Mack Center.
“The crowd was so appreciative, they broke the record in the Thomas & Mack for the loudest applause ever recorded,” Sturdivant said.
In the mid-1960s, Thomas and Mack set out to build a computer center but ended up contributing land to UNLV so it could have the space to accommodate a university.
Wynn Resorts Ltd. Chairman Steve Wynn said, “He had this wonderful humility, stunning humility. He was my role model.”
Contact Raven Jackson at rjackson@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0283. Follow @ravenmjackson on Twitter.
