James Stanley Reed

1938 - 2025

Our Dad never let his hat hang on the nail for long. His late parents, DeWitt and Itha Ashworth Reed, were descendants of pioneering Nevada families. He was raised in McGill, Nevada, a small town he dearly loved, filled with amazing people.
At White Pine High School, he was the yearbook editor, drum major, a student body officer, played the clarinet and saxophone, and was on the basketball team. He told us he should have studied, but there just wasn't enough time. He played on the McGill baseball team that won the state championship in 1953. The position he played that year, he said, was "center bench."
He attended the University of Nevada on a scholarship and took a degree in economics at San Diego State University. After a stint in the Army, he graduated with honors from the University of California's San Francisco law school. He was appointed chief counsel of the California Legislature's Assembly Judiciary Committee, where he worked on many laws on the books today, including major revisions of family and corporate security laws, and especially the iconic California Environmental Quality Act, which was a focus of his law practice for decades.
He served on various committees studying environmental and economic issues as an appointee of the governor, senate, and assembly. As an appointee of the California assembly speaker, he served eight years on the governing board of the bi-state Tahoe Regional Planning Agency, which is composed of seven members each from Nevada and California. He often said that any small thing he did to preserve and protect Lake Tahoe and its environs was the major achievement of his professional career.
He wrote articles for professional journals and taught environmental and constitutional law. Along with this family, he loved running and ran four marathons. He especially enjoyed watching his sons run the Boston and California International marathons. He loved backpacking and climbed over 50 peaks.
Tired of the flat lands, he built a house at 8200 feet in Mammoth Lakes among the peaks of the Eastern Sierra. He was in a law firm there with three brilliant partners and a wonderful staff. He wrote a book titled "The Fatal Affair in Convict Canyon" that has been adapted by screen writers into a screen play. He also wrote dozens of stories on Nevada and Eastern Sierra history for newspapers and travel publications.
He was a founder of the Silver King Unorganized Mountaineers (SKUM), a backpacking group with an annual hike that has gone on for more than half a century. With his granddaughter now a veteran hiker, the hike is in its third generation and may last a full century.
He loved and played music. Some of the artists he enjoyed were Beethoven, Mozart, Joplin, Willie, Johnny, and Merle. He possessed the scores of the nine Beethoven symphonies. In his later years, he would walk a few feet from his writing desk to his piano, which he played from age 10 to the end of his life.
In addition to his parents, he was predeceased by his son Jim, sister Karen, and brother-in-law Jim Dewar. He is survived by his son and traveling companion Joe, former wife and great friend Maureen, beautiful granddaughter Ellie, daughter-in-law Karla, cousins with whom he enjoyed annual reunions, and many folks whose friendship he cherished.
Along with those of his son Jim, his ashes will be scattered high in the Sierras in the valley of the Silver King, which they both called the most beautiful place on earth.