MARK WAITE / PVT Tim Hafen recalls Bob Swadell during a memorial service at the Artesia Community Center Sunday. Advertisement

Bob Swadell was remembered as "the go to guy" with access to top officials during a memorial with about 50 people in attendance at the Artesia Community Center Sunday.

The local took place with military honors in the Southern Nevada Veterans Memorial Cemetery April 17.

Swadell served in the Korean War and earned a Bronze Star in the Vietnam War. He retired a lieutenant colonel in the Army after 21 years in the military and went to work for the Central Intelligence Agency. He died at age 77 on March 14.

Swadell was a prominent lobbyist in the Pahrump community after moving here from Henderson in 2000.

"Bob was the go-to guy. When it came time to get things done, he got them done," said Sally Morrill, president of the Artesia Homeowners Association.

Swadell was instrumental in the conversion of the local college campus from the Community College of Southern Nevada to Great Basin College, she said. Before he died, his last major project was the move to create a community college campus on 280 acres of land from the U.S. Bureau of Land Management. U.S. Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev. introduced a bill conveying the land which has yet to pass.

"He was a dedicated man with a vision. Not the least of his accomplishments was in organizing support for the federal detention center here in Pahrump," Morrill said. "The culmination of eight years of his effort resulted in his name on the justice center in Henderson."

Bill Verbeck, director of the Pahrump Great Basin College, who was hired by a panel that included Swadell, said, "In my long years of administration, I've never met an individual who made an impact on me personally as Bob Swadell had."

"He had Sen. Reid's cell phone number and he didn't hesitate to call the senator on a Saturday morning."

Officials from Great Basin College flew down from Elko to give Swadell the Community Service Award in May 2008. It sat on a table Sunday next to a book called "Spycraft," by Robert Wallace and H. Keith Melton which reportedly has references to Swadell's CIA service in it.

"Bob helped me through many hard times in my short, political career by saying 'keep your head held high and do what you think is right no matter what others say,'" Nye County Commissioner Butch Borasky said in remarks read by Pahrump Regional Planning Commission Chairman Mark Kimball.

Borasky recalled when Swadell told the late Al Collins, the developer of Mountain Falls, "You've worked the dirt there so many times you have worn it out."

He lauded Swadell for being a strong supporter of the Pahrump hospital.

Kimball himself said he was impressed when the Senate majority leader came to Pahrump, Swadell stood alongside him and told him what needed to be done for the Pahrump college campus.

"Bob was a servant to our country, the military, the CIA, Henderson and Pahrump," Sheriff Tony DeMeo said in a statement read by Assistant Sheriff Rick Marshall.

Al Parker, with the Southern Nevada Development Center, first met Swadell when officials were talking about a "two plus two" campus in Pahrump. Parker said plans for a community college have come a long way since then.

"I was impressed with his wit, his intelligence, his thought processes, the way he could take plans and actually make them happen," Parker said.

Tim Hafen, developer of The Artesia project, a former state assemblyman, Valley Electric Association board member and early Pahrump settler, recalled Swadell's saying, "You can't kill a bad idea."

Hafen said Swadell worked with his daughter Vicki Hafen Scott and others to help make Nevada State College happen in Henderson.

"They were told by Monday if they could raise $900,000 they could get that building. They raised $900,000," Hafen said.

Swadell was also instrumental in getting a 5-0 vote from Clark County commissioners in 2001 to agree to move the Nye County line two miles farther east, Hafen said. He said the residents on the Clark County side shopped in Pahrump, sent their children to school in Pahrump, but they didn't pay their taxes in Pahrump.

Hafen recalled when the state highway commission was merely going to widen the shoulders on a stretch of Highway 160 from Pahrump to Las Vegas. Swadell already had one of the commissioners all primed up when the other members of the Pahrump delegation weren't getting anywhere.

Swadell asked about the price of doing a cost study on widening the highway to four lanes. It not only turned out to be cheaper than just widening the shoulders, the bid came in $1.5 million less than estimated, Hafen said.

"By pulling the right strings, by pushing the right buttons, Bob was responsible for moving the county line, widening the highway and getting that community college," Hafen said. "I always wanted Bob on my side."

Former Valley Electric Association Director Lou Holveck said "he was able to get into places. He had such respect from those politicans."