Nevada’s state song has long been a feature at some big Nevada events. It was sung, for instance, at the 2025 State of the State Address, and “Killers” singer Brandon Flowers gave a rendition at late Sen. Harry Reid’s funeral.
Though not every Nevadan may know all the lyrics to “Home Means Nevada,” they’ve likely come across the song at some point. But the woman who wrote the song may be lesser known, and she was never paid for creating the melodic tune.
Bertha Raffetto, born in Iowa in 1885, was a composer, poet, women’s club leader and a Republican political party activist in Reno, according to the Nevada Women’s History Project.
She regularly wrote poetry for the Nevada State Journal, now the Reno Gazette-Journal, and she was involved in the Reno branch of the League of American Pen Women. She received multiple recognitions for work, including being named poet laureate of the Nevada Federation of Women’s Clubs.
In 1932, Raffetto was invited to the Nevada Native Daughters annual picnic to sing a song.. There were plenty of Nevada songs to choose from, but she didn’t feel they expressed her “admiration, esteem, and affection for Nevada,” she wrote in a 1949 article.
Raffetto decided to re-write a song she had written several years before that she felt didn’t fully express her appreciation for the Silver State, she wrote.
“I wanted to express in a simple, natural style, those enduring and homely qualities I had found in Nevada — the same qualities one finds in a good home — beauty, joy and security,” she wrote.
Due to an error in marking her calendar, Raffetto only had one day to write the song before the picnic, and she worked from 10 a.m. to 4 a.m. the next morning to get it done.
Her song described the state’s natural beauty, from its sage and pines to its hills and silver streams. It evoked images of the golden colors and sunshine Nevada is known for, as well as its windy weather.
“I did not wonder if I could write that song, I was sure that I could; was sure of my technique; sure, of precisely what I wanted to express,” she wrote. “It really isn’t difficult to say, ‘I love you,’ to an adored one whom you have known and loved for a long, long time.”
When she performed the song at the picnic, the audience loved it. The acting governor as well other state leadership expressed liking it, and Raffetto would go on to perform the song 187 times in the span of three months, according to Raffetto.
The song then went to the Nevada Legislature with a list of endorsements, and in February 1933, the Legislature approved it as the state song, according to a 1933 Nevada State Journal report.
“How proud I was to sing for both houses of the legislature, and how deeply I was moved by the honors accorded me before they adopted unanimously ‘Home Means Nevada’ as the official state song!” Raffetto wrote.
Raffetto, who died in 1952, was never compensated for her work — nor did she want to be.
She wrote that the song came to fruition during the Great Depression, when many families were struggling, so she did not request payment for the song. She received the “personal satisfaction that accrues from contribution to cultural progress,” she wrote.
“How abhorrent it would have been to me, to ask money for a song when so many were needing bread!!” Raffetto wrote.
There have been arguments against the song over the years — whether they’re from Southern Nevada residents who say the song leans too heavily into Northern Nevada or from some who argue it is old — but Raffetto’s song has lasted through the debates.
In a 2007 Review-Journal letter to the editor, Henderson resident Carolyn Singer once wrote against modernizing the song: “What rhymes with slot machine? Personally, I like the old song that reminds people what Nevada used to be like.”
Contact Jessica Hill at jehill@reviewjournal.com. Follow @jess_hillyeah on X.
