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\tLAS VEGAS \u2014 The woman who came up with a neon sign that has welcomed countless visitors to \u201cfabulous Las Vegas\u201d since 1959 has died.<\/p>\n
\tBetty Willis, credited with designing the \u201cWelcome to Fabulous Las Vegas\u201d sign, died in her Overton, Nev., home on Sunday, according to an obituary on the Virgin Valley & Moapa Valley Mortuaries\u2019 website.<\/p>\n
\tThe 91-year-old artist\u2019s often-copied sign sits in a median in the middle of Las Vegas Boulevard south of the Strip.<\/p>\n
\t\u201cIt\u2019s the most recognizable icon in the world,\u201d said Danielle Kelly, executive director of The Neon Museum in Las Vegas, where the signs of Sin City\u2019s past are retired and on display.<\/p>\n
\tThe welcome sign\u2019s design, which doesn\u2019t have a copyright owner, has become a fixture on travel tchotchkes from Vegas and everywhere else, Kelly said. She has a T-shirt from San Francisco with that city\u2019s name swapped in for Las Vegas in front of the sign\u2019s recognizable shape, she said.<\/p>\n
\t\u201cThe fact that everyone loves that sign and its design after all these years is a testament to Betty\u2019s talents,\u201d Clark County Commissioner Steve Sisolak said. \u201cThere is probably no bigger Las Vegas icon than that sign.\u201d<\/p>\n
\tIn 2009, the sign was added to the National Register of Historic Places.<\/p>\n
\tKelly called Willis\u2019 designs dazzling and said her personality was akin to a strong, fast-talking female lead in movies like \u201cHis Girl Friday.\u201d<\/p>\n
\t\u201cA little salty, a little irreverent,\u201d Kelly said with fondness. \u201cI thought she was a classic broad.\u201d<\/p>\n
\tWillis, born in 1923 in the small town of Overton northeast of Las Vegas, worked as a commercial artist in Los Angeles before returning to Las Vegas, where she worked for sign companies and designed the famous diamond-shaped beacon of flashing lights.<\/p>\n
\tThe sign has become such a popular photo backdrop that a parking lot for cars and tour buses in the middle of the street was expanded in 2012.<\/p>\n
\tWillis also designed neon signs for the Moulin Rouge casino and Blue Angel motel in Las Vegas.<\/p>\n
No replies were posted for this topic.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
LAS VEGAS \u2014 The woman who came up with a neon sign that has welcomed countless visitors to \u201cfabulous Las Vegas\u201d since 1959 has died. Betty Willis, credited with designing the \u201cWelcome to Fabulous Las Vegas\u201d sign, died in her…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":36,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8864","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-latest-casino-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8864","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/36"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8864"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8864\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8864"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8864"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8864"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}