Described by friends as a "fixture" of Carson City, Eugene Chaney Jr. was lauded for his generosity.
Chaney, owner and founder of the Carson Horseshoe Club, died on Monday. He was 67.
"It's easy to talk this way about someone who's passed, but in all sincerity, (he embodied) the old saying, 'he'd give you the shirt of his back.' I'd seen him personally loan out money to his customers and people who knew he was a man of substance," said Chuck Murray, a friend of Chaney's.
Murray, the owner of a Carson City insurance company, said Chaney liked to golf when he wasn't working but most of all liked visiting with friends.
Besides being a good friend, Chaney was a "very astute" businessman, said Morey Tresnit, co-owner of Mo & Sluggo's Bar & Grill.
Tresnit said his favorite promotion of Chaney's was a commercial for the Horseshoe Club where Chaney was standing in his casino and was then hit in the head by a flying Horseshoe.
"It was just really catchy," Tresnit said.
Mayor Marv Teixeira said he met Chaney about 25 years ago when he was in marketing with IBM and Chaney was getting the casino started.
He was a "heck of a nice man," said Teixeira, who noticed Chaney had been sick lately.
"He was a diabetic like I am, so we'd always compare notes."
When he started the club in 1973, Chaney had experience in casinos. He had grown up on a tobacco and corn farm in Maryland, working there during the day and at a casino, owned by his father, at night.
Chaney then got a business degree at the University of North Carolina and was getting ready to go to Georgetown University for law. He went back home to take care of his sick father, said one of Chaney's daughters, Jeanette Kelley.
Chaney was the rebellious child in the family, she said, and moved to Nevada because he'd visited before and decided he wanted to go.
"He loved Carson, he loved the community, he loved that it was so laid back - and that it kind of had a partying thing, too - and just loved hanging out and loved the dry climate and loved the sunshine all the time and the breeze."
Chaney asked to be buried in the town of Genoa, she said, because he thought it was beautiful.
Funeral services will be at 2 p.m. Monday at United Methodist Church in Carson City. A memorial celebration will follow at 5 p.m. at the Horseshoe Club.
• Contact reporter Dave Frank at dfrank@nevadaappeal.com or 881-1212.