Selma Bartlett
Larry Ruvo
UNLV’s Lee Business School is inducting banker Selma Bartlett and alcohol distributor Larry Ruvo into the Nevada Business Hall of Fame.
The ceremony will be held Thursday night in the Bellagio’s grand ballroom.
Bartlett, who grew up on an Oklahoma farm during the Depression, moved to Henderson in 1954 and was one of the first female banking officers in Nevada.
She and her late husband, Troy, also a banker, helped found St. Rose Dominican Hospitals as well as Henderson’s first senior center and below-market rental housing.
She has spent more than five decades in the finance industry and now works as a private banker for Meadows Bank in Henderson.
Ruvo started his career at the Sahara and Caesars Palace and later became the youngest hotel manager at the Frontier. In 1970, he formed an alcohol distribution company with Frontier investor Steve Wynn.
Their business, Wynn Distributing, was sold two years later to Southern Wine & Spirits of America. The Miami-based company operates locally as Southern Wine & Spirits of Nevada, with Ruvo as senior managing director.
Ruvo founded Keep Memory Alive, a nonprofit group that raises money to treat brain disorders. He also played a key role in building the Cleveland Clinic Lou Ruvo Center for Brain Health in downtown Las Vegas.
The center is named for Larry Ruvo’s father, who died from Alzheimer’s disease.