Tomorrow, Feb. 6, would have been President Ronald Reagan's 99th birthday - and supporters, friends and fans of the late president will celebrate with a party/reception in Las Vegas to kick off a yearlong effort to select and designate an appropriate mountain peak in Nevada to name "Mount Reagan."
My non-profit organization, Citizen Outreach Foundation, is undertaking this effort as part of the national Reagan Legacy Project, whose objective is to name a significant landmark in every state after President Reagan. And while there are over 3,000 tributes and commemorative sites to Reagan worldwide, none yet exist in Nevada.
So it's time we got ourselves on the map. Literally.
The point of naming a major landmark after the president is to ensure that our generation will leave behind prominent references to this great conservative leader. The best way to do this is to make sure future generations see and hear about Reagan on a regular basis - and a mountain peak is the natural choice for a natural landmark naming effort.
However, in order to make Mount Reagan a reality, we've got to climb through a mountain of bureaucratic red tape. Believe it or not, there is actually an entire federal department in charge of naming mountains, lakes, rivers and valleys in the U.S. And of course, a naming application request must be filled out in triplicate and will take an estimated eight months minimum to process and approve.
You know. The exact sort of thing President Reagan fought against his entire political career.
The project already has the backing of a number of prominent Nevadans. The honorary co-chairs for this weekend's kick-off birthday party/reception are former Ambassador Sig Rogich, producer of the famous "Morning in America" TV ads in the 1984 presidential campaign, and longtime Senate Minority Leader Bill Raggio.
In addition, the effort also enjoys the support of perhaps the two most influential Nevadans from the Reagan era - former Nevada Sen. Paul Laxalt and former Republican National Committee Chairman Frank Fahrenkopf.
Plus two Washington, D.C., conservative powerhouses will help kick off the Nevada Reagan Legacy Project tomorrow. Reagan biographer Craig Shirley will join Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform and founder of the national legacy project at the birthday party.
We hope all Nevadans will support this very worthwhile effort. For additional information, please visit www.Reagan
LegacyProject.com. Oh, and happy birthday, Mr. President!
• Chuck Muth is president of Citizen Outreach, a non-profit public policy grassroots advocacy organization. He may be reached at chuck@citizenoutreach.com.