March 4, 1940 ~ April 13, 2017
Orlis Trone, age 77, passed away on April 13, 2017, in Reno, Nevada. He was born March 4, 1940, in Selma, Alabama.
He left Alabama in 1953 and lived in many places all over the country, settling in California in the late 1960s. For most of his career, Orlis worked as a mental health counselor for troubled teens. He retired from First Hospital of Vallejo in 2002.
He and his wife, Anita, moved to Fernley, Nevada, in 2006, and became very involved in their community. Although Orlis was not a veteran, he loved and appreciated the military. He participated at many events at Northern Nevada Veterans Memorial Cemetery.
Orlis loved America and was a passionate supporter of the Republican Party. He was a member of the Lyon County Republican Central Committee and an associate member of the Fernley Republican Women. He strongly believed in participating in the political process. He wrote many articles supporting the Constitution and the American way of life. He occasionally wrote columns for the Nevada Appeal and the Lahontan Valley News, for which he won first place in 2014 in the Nevada Press Association’s Better Newspaper Contest as a columnist.
To many of his followers, he was known as the “Humble Pamphleteer”. Because of both his political involvement and writings he did for the website and newspaper, he gained the respect of many people in Northern Nevada, including people of different viewpoints and state and county elected officials.
Orlis and Anita enjoyed traveling in their RV. They visited almost all of the national parks in the Western United States. Their most recent trip, last August and September, took them to Mount Rushmore, Yellowstone National Park and Arches National Park.
Orlis is survived by his loving wife, Anita, whom he had been with for 44 years; sister-in-law, Janette (Larry) Van De Mark of Missouri; niece, Crystal Van De Mark, of Oklahoma; sister-in-law, Debra Fenno (Randy Critchley) of Wisconsin; and many cousins from all over the country.
A Celebration of Life will be held on Saturday, April 29th at 10:30 a.m. at the Smith Family Funeral Home, 505 Rio Vista Dr. in Fallon, followed by a luncheon at Epworth United Methodist Church’s Wolf Center, 457 Esmeralda Street in Fallon.