At home

Bob and Nancy Price have both been elected officials in southern Nevada—Nancy as a Nevada regent and Bob as a state legislator. They met when she was doing Republican opposition research on him when he was a Democratic member of the Nevada Assembly. (Until George Bush convinced her otherwise three years ago, she was a lifelong Republican.) In 1984, Gov. Richard Bryan delayed a special session of the legislature for two days in order not to interfere with their wedding date. After their departures from public office, they moved from Clark County to Sparks, where they live in a historical home.

What made you move to the north?

Nancy: Well, first of all, I started here. My kids graduated from Sparks High, I used to live over on Covina, and I moved down to Las Vegas when the phone company was being split up, and I had a choice of going to San Francisco or Las Vegas; and because I was involved in some politics, I moved down to Las Vegas.

Bob: I lived in Las Vegas from 1954, so I spent many years there. But when my term finished as a state legislator, Nancy asked me, “You know, since you don’t have to live in the district anymore, would you consider moving to Sparks?” I said, “Sure,” because we have many friends here, and we have two sons and a grandson from Nancy’s former marriage, and I like to go up to the legislature during the session. … I was perfectly happy to move here. We get back and forth from time to time, particularly if Southwest or somebody is having those senior specials for $49.

You both served in public office. You know how mean-spirited it has become. If you had it to do over, would you?

Bob: I have to admit I don’t have the desire I had in those days. I wouldn’t say that I never would, but I don’t think so.

Nancy: I absolutely would. Somebody’s got to do it, and I think the reason it’s the way it is now is because you don’t have a diverse group of people that do run, for a variety of reasons. I think if people knew how easy it [is] to influence the system either by running—which is not easy—but also getting involved in politics, I think people would do more, and I think the more people you would have in there, the better it would be.

Tell me about this house you live in.

Bob: Oh, it’s wonderful. This particular home was built in Virginia City sometime in the late 1800s. It’s a two story—what’s the style?—Victorian home. It also has a basement. They didn’t move the basement. I don’t know the exact history or why, but they decided to move it down to Reno. So in around 1916, ‘15, ‘14, right in around there, they physically moved it down the hill and across the valley and into Reno. And it’s just amazing to me that they could move a house this size then. And it was there for about 40 years or so, and it was moved to Sparks. … We just love it. We’ve tried to keep it up historically as well as we could.

You’re going to try to track the history of the house?

Nancy: Yes, I’ve been over to Washoe, the assessor’s office, and they didn’t have much of anything on it, only that it was placed here in 1915. What I’ll have to do now is to research it from Virginia City. I have an original document connecting the two pieces of property from the Bradley family. I’ve seen and I will be getting a picture of it when it was first moved here, but other than that, nobody seems to know anything. But I’ll find out.

Do you do the electrical work on the house? (Bob was an electrician.)

Nancy: No!