(This is the fourth in a series of articles looking at the personal side of Carson City candidates.)
When Tom and Ronda Tatro's two sons left home a year ago for college, they faced their empty nest sadly for about a week. Then they realized they had a small problem.
The Tatros love to exercise, cross country ski and water ski. Without their sons, Ryan and Jared, they were forced to look elsewhere for a third person to go water skiing with them, a necessity especially since neither swims very well.
"Ski boats only need three feet of water," Ronda said. "And you wear a life jacket."
"I can get across a pool," her husband added somewhat defensively.
Considering the couple has 14 siblings between them, hunting up an extra family member for their weekend water skiing trips wasn't too hard.
As a candidate for Carson City mayor, Tatro understands water skiing might be the first sacrifice of his summer if he is elected Tuesday.
"Water skiing is fun, but it's more important to see the city progress," he said.
A win for Tatro, 43, would be historical as no one has ever unseated an incumbent mayor since Carson City and Ormsby County consolidated in 1969. Tatro served on the Board of Supervisors between 1989 and 1998.
"Having been on the board for so long, I feel connected to the community," Tatro said. "I went through some tough times on the board. When you spend time on something, and you have an investment in it, it becomes part of you. The city can be run better than it is. Progress has slowed, and we can do better by involving people. That reaching out isn't happening these days.
"Doing a job is easier than running for it. I can get in and get things done, but talking to people and trying to convince them to vote for me is a hard thing to do."
Although much of the focus of the campaign has been on whether or not Tatro can balance his full-time job with the state and the role of mayor, balancing roles has been a part of Tatro's life for years, he said.
The Tatro family moved from Boise, Idaho, to Carson City in 1973 when Tatro's father, Don, became manager of the Carson Nugget. The sixth of 10 children, Tatro said at first he didn't like Carson City.
"It was just different," Tatro said. "I'd lived in the same house from like, 15 months to 15 years old. I hadn't known anything different. The first month there was one of the biggest snow storms I could remember. But it all worked out."
Tatro graduated from Carson High School in 1975 and started school at Western Nevada Community College. He met his future wife at church when he was 18 and Ronda Kitchen was 17.
"He walked into church and I didn't know who he was," Ronda said. "I leaned over and told my sister, 'That's the guy I'm going to marry.' Good thing he turned out to be a good guy."
They married in 1977, and Tatro immediately began the balancing act of school, work and family. He worked in the purchasing office for the Nugget and continued to go to school.
"We were so poor. We were just destitute," Tom said. "The first year we were together we made $10,000 combined."
"We had to pay the government like $500, and I just cried and cried," Ronda added.
Son Ryan joined the family in 1980 and Jared followed in 1981. Tatro graduated from WNCC in 1980, and continued his education at the University of Nevada, Reno. He started working for the state purchasing office as a buyer in 1984, while continuing to commute to Reno sometimes twice a day for classes.
"You just had to set your mind at the beginning of the semester that you can do anything for 16 weeks," Tatro said. "They let me have a flexible schedule so I could finish my degree. I would go to work at 6 a.m., go to my day classes, come back and work until 6 p.m., then sometimes go back to Reno."
He earned his business degree in 1985, and by 1993 was the administrator for the state purchasing office. By that time, he was also serving as a supervisor.
"It was our way of life," Ronda said.
He worked for the state purchasing office until 1995 when he transferred to the Nevada Department of Transportation. He became the fiscal manager with the Nevada Department of Motor Vehicles in August 1999, one week before the Genesis computer system went on line.
The couple takes immense pride in their sons. Ryan, 20, lives in Arizona, where he moved "because he wanted to be warm," Tatro said. Jared, 19, goes to school in Boise.
We don't have a whole lot of experience not having kids around," Tatro said.
"They moved the same week, and we were both big-eyed for about a week," Ronda said. "Then we got really used to it."
The couple confessed that the hectic schedules did take a toll on their marriage.
"We were so busy we didn't talk to each other," Tom said. "We'd been married for 17 years before we had problems. Our marriage is OK now. Before I filed, we talked about it. We asked the boys about it and they thought it was cool, but they worried about where we had just been.
"We told them our strategy, how we'd get through this as a married couple. We know our priorities. Something like (running for mayor) can take over your life if you let it. (Your marriage) has to be your priority."
Ronda said with their sons gone, she can be more involved in her husband's public life. She said she has no doubts about his ability to serve as mayor.
"He truly cares about Carson City and the people who live here," she said. "He's just a quick thinker. He's an efficiency expert. He can find the quickest way to get things done. He has the ability to look beyond the present and see the consequences. He's always trying to be better and do things better."