Marjorie Barrick (1917-2007)

Born in Iowa, Marjorie Jacobsen earned her degree in economics from Creighton University in Omaha, where she met and married Edward Barrick. They moved to Las Vegas in 1951. Before his death in 1979, Edward Barrick was the part-owner of several Strip and downtown casino properties. Marjorie Barrick dedicated herself to the community and to philanthropy. The year after her husband died, she set up the Barrick Lecture Series, which has brought leading national and international figures—politicians and playwrights, diplomats and doctors—to speak at UNLV. Her donations have enabled to UNLV to fund numerous graduate students and faculty researchers. Her many honors include being named a Distinguished Nevadan by the Board of Regents, receiving an honorary doctorate of Humane Letters, and the naming of UNLV’s museum, now the Marjorie Barrick Museum of Art.