JUDGE EMILE J. GEZELIN

(1967-1973)

Emile J. Gezelin was born in San Francisco, California, August 15, 1915, the son of Pierre and Louise Gezelin. His mother and father were immigrants from France who came to the United States in 1907.

At the age of five, the family moved to Reno and has resided in Nevada since that time. He married Josephine Harriet of Ely, Nevada, in 1939, and they have four children, Pierre, Mary Catherine (Kinee), Joanne, and John.

Judge Gezelin was educated in the Reno schools and graduated from the University of Nevada in 1937 when he was awarded his B.A. Degree. He received his M.A. Degree from Nevada in 1945.

Upon graduation from the University, he accepted a position in Eureka, Nevada as a teacher in the seventh and eighth grades. The following year he taught in the Eureka County High School, and was then named a Superintendent of the school district, a position he held until 1941.

In 1941, he was appointed a Deputy State Superintendent of Public Instruction, and for the next five years was State Superintendent in charge of supervision over the schools in Washoe, Churchill, Mineral, Lyon, Pershing, Humboldt, Lander and Eureka Counties.

He received his Doctor of Laws Degree at the University of California, Hastings College of the Law, in June, 1948. He took the bar examination one year before he graduated from law school and was admitted to the State Bar of Nevada on October 25, 1947.

Gezelin served as Chief Deputy District Attorney of Washoe County from 1952 to 1959, after which he returned to private practice until his appointment to the Bench by Governor Paul D. Laxalt on July 1, 1967. He has also served as a member of the State Board of Bar Examiners and was elected to the Nevada State Board of Bar Governors in 1956, a position to which he was annually re-elected until his election as President of the State Bar of Nevada for the year 1965-66. He served as an elected member on the State Board of Education representing Washoe County from 1956 until he resigned to accept the appointment as District Judge.

He is a member of the Elks, State Bar of Nevada, Washoe County Bar association, American Bar Association, American Trial Lawyers Association, Judicature Society, National Conference of State Trial Judges and the National Council of Juvenile Court Judges.