Former Washoe County district attorney, judge, boxing referee, and television personality Mills Lane, 85, has died. A fitness buff for many years, he was felled by a stroke while in his sixties and never fully recovered. He spent his later years in New York. However, he was living with his family in Reno when he died. According to his son, Tommy, he had been in hospice care.
Mills Lane was a legend in northern Nevada, and I had met him a few times when I worked at the county law library and when he was a judge/part-time boxing referee. One time back in the late 1990s, before he became famous refereeing the Tyson-Holyfield fight and was the star of his own television show, Judge Mills Lane, he came into the law library. It was a Saturday, and I had worked weekends there. He asked me if I was computer literate, and I said, "A little." He wanted me to help him with his computer, so we went to his office. He couldn't figure out where the "on" switch was, but sure enough, I found it.
It is moments like this story where you never forget a person. I also remember when he would come to the law library on weekends. His office was on the second floor of the courthouse at the time (later there was a new courthouse building named after him), and he never, ever took the elevator. He always took the stairs. Judge Lane was in terrific physical condition, and I would also see him walking around town, always wearing a baseball cap and always having a stern expression on his face. He always prided himself as being a workaholic, never taking any vacations or other times off. He would come upstairs to the law library, and the lawyers there were scared to death of him because despite his small size (I doubt he was taller than five-feet-seven), he was that intimidating. Then he would leave the library after a few minutes not saying a word but still having the same stern expression on his face.
Judge Lane wrote an autobiography, Let's Get It On, which served as his tagline and the phrase he used as referee in the boxing matches he presided. I have a copy of it which he had signed for me. He was left-handed like I am.
He was a character, never to be forgotten.
Lane joined the U.S. Marine Corps in 1956 and became a boxer. When stationed in Okinawa, he became the All Far-East welterweight champion.
At Nevada in 1960, he won the NCAA welterweight title and barely missed making the Olympic team. He turned professional while still in college and compiled a record of 10-1.
Lane graduated from the University of Nevada, Reno in 1963 with a degree in business administration. While there, he began his career as a boxing referee. He graduated from the University of Utah's College of Law in 1970.
Lane began working in the Washoe County District Attorney's office as a prosecutor in 1971 and spent nearly 17 years there. He was elected district attorney of Washoe County in 1982. He became a judge of Washoe County's Second Judicial District Court in 1990. In 1998, he stepped down from the bench to begin a courtroom series, "Judge Mills Lane," which ran for three years.
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