Most Nevadans have never heard of Carole Vilardo.

And even those who have may not understand just how influential she was and how incalculable the debt is they owe her.

Vilardo, the longtime head of the Nevada Taxpayers Association who died this past weekend at the age of 80, was the consummate citizen lobbyist – maybe the only one I have known who really deserved the descriptor. She did not care about, but often understood, the politics of a tax proposal. She only cared about the impact of the policy, whether it comported with the law and how it interacted with other statutes.

She was not a tax policy wonk; she was THE tax policy wonk.

As my former colleague Jane Ann Morrison wrote upon Vilardo's retirement: "She would explain there is no perfect tax, otherwise everyone would have found it. And she knew that there are almost always unintended consequences in any tax bill, often a tax that hurts one group of people and helps another. She was a strong opponent of carving tax exemptions out for one group. And she didn't like taxes earmarked to go to one special need. All those policies created inequities."

In a world where artifice suffuses the process – where the skill in obscuring truth is actually a prized quality – Vilardo would have none of it. Her testimony was always based simply on her encyclopedic knowledge of the state's tax structure and the history of legislative actions.

She didn't spin tales, as too many lobbyists do. She was Joe Friday's dream, a ma'am who always gave just the facts.

"I think she was the most important person in the Nevada Legislature who wasn't elected, ever," said Billy Vassiliadis, who has lobbied in the capital for decades. "She worked to improve bills she didn't support, just to make them better."

Said Virginia Valentine, who knew Vilardo through her years as a local government head and now as the chief of the gaming industry's trade association: "She was more than a lobbyist. She was an institution."

Similar and bipartisan plaudits have flowed in on social media and in emails from those who knew and/or admired Vilardo.

"Taxpayers will never know how she protected them and how the smart legislators listened to her," longtime lobbyist Jim Nadeau told me.

"She was not only a knowledgeable tax genius, she did it with such calm grace and a special style, all her own," recalled Scott Higginson, a former Las Vegas city councilman. "I remember lots of hats and bright colored glasses before they were popular…usually matching the hat."

Ah, the bespoke headwear. She had as many hats as there were holes in Nevada's tax code, and she knew every one.

As I wrote when she retired more than five years ago, she was the E.F Hutton of the capital. But it wasn't just that people listened when she spoke. Vilardo is the only person I knew who could affect a bill's trajectory because of fears of what she might say.

Yes, many bills or amendments were altered because of what Vilardo testified in committee hearings. But the best laid plans of special interests were also adjusted or scotched because of trepidation about what her testimony against a tax bill would do.

"Getting her to neutral was a major victory," recalled Vassiliadis, who among other high-powered capital influencers sat on the edge of their seats as they awaited her remarks, knowing she could slow down or, worse for them, entomb a bill.

I was among dozens, nay hundreds of Carson City's temporary denizens who approached her in the hallways for insight and history. Although I shuddered when she picked apart something I had written, she always did it in a kind, even welcoming way, so it stung less. But she always, always made time to explain where I had gone awry in my amateur analysis, amplify my superficial reading of the law or just to tell a story of a past tax donnybrook.

I actually believe that while her legacy of making legislation better and looking out for taxpayers is so important and lasting, that is not what most who knew her will remember Vilardo for. It was her unfailing generosity with her time, her willingness to educate the benighted, her warmth and humor in doing so.

In the corridors of a place where everyone was jockeying to be a somebody, Carole always took time for the nobodies: A newbie lobbyist or journalist, a legislative staffer looking for context, a backbencher lawmaker flummoxed by a complicated bill.

"She was SO nice and helpful to me as an intern in Carson back in 2007 – I'll never forget her for that," emailed Paul Smith, a former Democratic operative who now works for R&R Partners.

And, as veteran lobbyist Sabra Newby pointed out on Twitter, she was "a role model for female lobbyists. Intelligent, hard-working, tough, classy, no-nonsense, with a quick wit. Generations of female lobbyists are better for her example."

Vilardo's passing also, sadly, reinforces how she would seem an anachronism in the capital now, a relic of a bygone era where honesty and compromise were admired qualities. The endless partisan screeching, the preening poseurs, the base-pandering by both sides – she would have shaken her head and walked out of the building.

Vilardo was a conservative, to be sure. But she always kept the state's interests paramount, no matter which party might be upset with her. "Doing it right was more important than her personal philosophy," Vassiliadis said.

Imagine saying that about anybody in the political world today – elected or otherwise. A role model indeed.

The stylish, sweet and wonderful Carole Vilardo was all hat, no prattle. She gave Carson City what it so often lacked – substance and dedication. And she gave the state so much while asking for nothing in return.

I have two words left for her – and I am sure I speak for multitudes: Thank you.