Click the image below for Feb. 18-Mar. 3, 1982 digital edition
The founder of the Tahoe Weekly, David Mogilefsky, succumbed to a heart attack inside his Maui home on Dec. 20, 2014.
Mogilefsky founded the Tahoe Weekly with the first issue published on Feb. 18, 1982, under the name North Tahoe Week. Mogilefsky sought to capture the spirit of Tahoe in each issue of the magazine, while providing visitors and locals with information on making the most of his or her time in our community. We continue that tradition today, nearly 33 years later, at the Tahoe Weekly, and owe much to David’s vision.
David will be buried in the spring at Trail’s End Cemetery in Tahoe City, and a memorial service also will be scheduled at that time. Tahoe Weekly will share those details once they are finalized.
We invite any remembrances to be posted on our Facebook page, and the first issue of North Tahoe Weekly may be viewed at issuu.com/TheTahoeWeekly. His son, Wayne, and former associate publisher Patrice Parsons have shared the following:
Life was a journey
David Mogilefsky’s life was a journey that took him gradually westward across the U.S. in a series of bold and independent leaps. It began with his birth in Brooklyn on Nov. 14, 1942. As a teen he was the President of the Levittown High School senior class. After graduation, he made the first leg of his journey west to Arizona State University.
After graduation, he moved to San Francisco for law school at UC. Hastings. He was wary of authority and, upon finishing school, determined to be his own boss. He started a family with two sons, Wayne and Bret, and a successful practice as a personal injury attorney where he specialized in representing small clients against large companies including Aamco and Procter & Gamble. During this period, David became part owner in a cabin at Lake Tahoe. In 1973, having fallen in love with the area, David headed north and backtracked slightly east to buy a house in Carnelian Bay.
At Lake Tahoe, he continued to practice law while working as a volunteer fireman for the North Tahoe Fire Protection District. In 1979, he was part of a small group that founded the North Tahoe Hebrew Congregation.
The thing that David found most satisfying was publishing a visitor newspaper called North Tahoe Week magazine. Publishing a 12-page first issue in 1982, he found a balance between news, entertainment and visitor information that filled a much-needed gap in the community, as well as one in David’s own life. He delighted in publishing amusing anecdotes and jokes and his hands-on interaction with local business owners and residents made him a familiar face around the basin.
North Tahoe Week brought together a tight-knit crew of professionals and created an extended community within the local community that has only grown and flourished through successive iterations of the magazine.
In 1997, David sold the magazine and resumed his journey westward. He semi-retired in Maui but returned to Tahoe regularly. David is survived by two sons, a brother, a niece, a nephew, three grandchildren and a lot of friends. While Maui was the place where he chose to spend the rest of his life, Tahoe is the place he chose for his final rest. Per his last wishes, when the snow clears, he will finish the last leg of his journey at Trail’s End Cemetery in Tahoe City. His gravestone, which he designed himself down to the font and spacing, will serve as his final area publication.
– Wayne Mogilefsky
“Don’t bring me no bad news”
This headline was chosen by David Mogilefsky and placed under the masthead identifying him as the publisher of North Tahoe Truckee Week magazine. It comes from a song from “The Wiz,” a 1978 movie.
From 1982 until spring of 1997, David Mogilefsky was the wizard behind the curtain at North Tahoe Truckee Week. His vision for a magazine that put all current visitor information in one place grew to become a well-rounded community magazine with news, local interest columns, classified ads and a comic page. He taught his columnists how to write for his publication.
We were to keep everything short and to the point. We were never allowed to use phrases such as in Tahoe or located at, or the word tourists.
Sometimes he wasn’t the easiest boss to work for and during the cut-and-paste years, there were many long, stressful productions. He was a taskmaster and dutifully proofread every article and ad that went to print. He strove for quality and accuracy and used his past careers as a fireman and an attorney to strengthen his publishing.
During those years, David wrote a personal column called Publisher’s Clearing House covering everything he deemed interesting in the Tahoe Basin. David particularly enjoyed spotlighting filmmaking in the area, whether it was a “Bonanza” episode or a feature film. His interest led him to participating as an extra on set from time to time in productions of “Bonanza: The Next Generation” and “Cobb.” Later, when living in Hawaii he was the stand-in for Ed Asner during the filming of the current television series “Hawaii 5-0.”
North Tahoe Truckee Week meant a lot to him. His son, Wayne, found sketches on his desk. David was working on the inscription for his headstone the day that he died. Apparently, he must have sensed a need to prepare them, although he told me, more than once, that he was not going.
In viewing the photo of the stone, it was bittersweet to again see his editor’s marks. The fact that he was proofing his own headstone was a bit unsettling.
It read as follows:
David B Mogilefsky (no period the B is not an abbreviation)
1942 –
Lawyer Publisher
North Tahoe Truckee Week magazine
They say you can’t take it with you, but yet he did.
– P. Patterson Parsons was David Mogilefsky’s friend since 1985, and North Tahoe Truckee Week columnist, editor and associate publisher until 2004.
