Lois Tarkanian, the wife of legendary UNLV basketball coach Jerry Tarkanian who blazed her own path as a lifelong educator, advocate and 14-year member of the Las Vegas City Council, died Monday at the age of 90.
Her son, Danny Tarkanian, said his mother, a sitting member on the Board of Regents overseeing the Nevada System of Higher Education, wanted to be known as an advocate for education, especially for children with special needs.
“The most important thing to her was education,” he said. “She came from a family that wasn’t very highly educated. She was the first one to go to college. What many people don’t know is that she started the first and largest private school for the deaf in California. That was a huge accomplishment to her,” he added about Oralingua, the first private day school for deaf children in Whittier, California.
Lois Tarkanian served 12 years on the Clark County School District Board of Trustees, including a term as board president, before running for the Las Vegas City Council. She was elected to a six-year term as a regent in 2020.
“She just had a big heart for people that couldn’t take care of themselves,” Danny Tarkanian said. “That was her biggest thing in politics, too. She had a heart for the people who didn’t have any power themselves.”
She lost a 2000 race for the Clark County Commission to Chip Maxfield before being elected to the city council in 2005.
Tarkanian’s passing was announced by her family and she is survived by four children and 11 grandchildren. Jerry Tarkanian passed away in 2015 at age 84. He was a member of the College Basketball Hall of Fame and led the Runnin’ Rebels to the school’s only men’s basketball national championship, winning the Final Four in 1990.
Danny Tarkanian said until the family moved to Las Vegas in the mid-1970s for his father to become the head coach at UNLV, “my mother was the real breadwinner for the family.” Early in Jerry’s coaching career, Lois Tarkanian worked as a speech pathologist teaching deaf children to speak and helping people with speech impediments.
She earned a bachelor of arts in education and a master’s in speech pathology from Fresno State University, and a doctorate in leadership and human behavior from United States International University in San Diego.
Danny Tarkanian shared a text message with The Nevada Independent from former UNLV baseball player Anderson Hunt, who was a member of the 1990 national championship team.
“Love you and your family. I wouldn’t be an MVP, Hall of Fame member and especially champion without your mom and pop. But it was mom who eventually helped get me on the court by tutoring me in her spare time for the SAT/ACT! I believe that with All My Heart,” Hunt wrote.
In a post on the social media platform, X, Amy Tarkanian, Danny’s wife, wrote, “Who can actually say that she loves her mother-in-law? I loved her so much. I named my firstborn after her as well.”
In a statement, a spokesperson for the NSHE said Tarkanian “was a passionate and tireless champion for education at every level throughout her remarkable life. Dr. Tarkanian’s legacy extends far beyond, leaving a lasting impact on education and shaping the futures of Nevada students for generations to come.”
UNLV President Keith Whitfield said in a statement that Tarkanian’s “legacy of service to the Las Vegas community – from government and nonprofits to education at all levels – will forever be cemented in our hearts and memories.”
