Melinda Sheckells: The Queen of Cool
BY LAURA HENKEL
PHOTOGRAPHY COURTESY OF MELINDA SHECKELLS
Melinda Sheckells is, without a doubt, one of Las Vegas’s greatest assets. Over the past decade, she has played an important part in influencing how the media covers Las Vegas and how popular culture has developed there. She has honed her skills as a writer, editor, and producer to a high level and exudes sophisticated sophistication.
Ryan Doherty, owner of Corner Bar Management, Park on Fremont, Commonwealth, and many other fabulous city venues, shares, “Melinda has been a cultural engineer in Vegas for as long as I can remember. Guiding locals to the hippest and newest locations through her news affiliations and showing tourists the granular parts of Vegas they would never find. She is utterly outrageous, yet so self-aware, and her particular variant of “cool” rubs off on anything she covers.”
Melinda is a visionary and, dare I say it, an OG Influencer. As an award-winning journalist, she is always one step ahead of the curve when it comes to topics like celebrity culture, cuisine, traveling, and fashion. I would be willing to wager that she has positively impacted some aspect of your life without you even being aware of who she is. It may have been to try out a new restaurant, go to an art gallery, watch a play or performance, visit another country or say yes to the dress! Because she always has her finger on the pulse of current events, she never misses a beat when it comes to reporting on what is popular. She also isn’t afraid to start new trends.
She first arrived in Las Vegas on Memorial Day weekend in 2007 to begin work as the editor of a publication named Las Vegas Home and Design for Greenspun Media Group. It was a supplement to Las Vegas Life, one of their oldest publications that had been published for a million years. She swiftly advanced to the position of editor at Vegas Magazine. She began contributing to many of the commissioned magazine projects the company was undertaking at the time, including those for The Venetian, Wynn, and CityCenter, as well as a coffee table book for Caesars Palace. She started hosting weekly television segments on Fox 5 connected to Las Vegas Home and Design, which eventually led to a large amount of other work in the media industry. After that, she was an editor for 944 Magazine, Vegas Seven, and Vegas Rated (the first national newsstand publication about Las Vegas), co-founded Crystals Magazine with MGM Resorts, and was appointed head of content for the Life is Beautiful festival.
About ten years before her move here, Melinda’s mom and stepdad moved to Las Vegas to reside in her grandfather Gaylord’s house after he passed away. Her grandfather and his family had deep ties to the town’s banking community. With a twinkle in her eye, Melinda often states that they brought legit bank money to all the big casino deals during the ’60s and ’70s when a lot of money came in by more mysterious means. Melinda says, “My mom had wanted me to move to Vegas for quite some time as I was living in Newport Beach, where I went to college. Newport Beach is a gorgeous place, but it is a pretty sleepy town, and she thought I needed the pizazz of Vegas to really take flight. She knew what she was talking about. Plus, she dangled the no-state income tax angle in front of me, and who can argue with that.”
In 2018, when Vegas Seven closed, she embarked on new career endeavors, allowing her to further develop her creative skills and providing her with new opportunities. She became the Director of Digital Content for Audacy Radio after launching Tasty Tuesday on KTNV. During that time, she hosted a weekly entertainment show with Mark Gray called Flip The Strip. Following that, she was promoted to editorial director for OfftheStrip / OnTheStrip.
She started her own boutique content agency, Write Said Fed, where she works with national lifestyle and entertainment outlets such as Business Traveler magazine, The Hollywood Reporter, Variety, Billboard, Forbes Travel Guide, Hospitality Design, and Out Magazine. In addition to this, she works in the corporate sector, providing her services to governmental institutions, casinos, hotels, and luxury brands. Not one to stay still, she collaborated with the Clark County Clerk’s Office in 2021 to establish Weddings.Vegas. The following year, she launched Wynn Stories, an editorial portal for Wynn Resorts.
Melinda is also an equal opportunist. She has always supported new businesses and people working in a wide range of fields through all her media outlets. She has never wavered in shining the spotlight on projects that will lift our community. Melinda gives these projects the same amount of care and respect as she does when she is featuring a well-known place or celebrity, such as Iris Apfel, Diplo, Gordon Ramsay, or Damien Hirst, to name a few. Her excitement to show people the best that Las Vegas offers knows no bounds, and she wants to share it with as many people as possible. It is just who Melinda is. She always comes from a place of positivity.
Because she has such a strong respect for equality and a strong desire to see both business and people thrive, sometimes the “love” she gives is returned in the most one-of-a-kind and extraordinary ways. As a token of appreciation for all Melinda does for our community, the creator of The Golden Tiki, Branden Powers, included a shrunken head of “Melinda” — complete with her signature beautiful curls — as part of the establishment’s permanent macabre collection. That’s love, right?
It would be quite negligent of me if I did not point out that Melinda remains youthful and does not age. Either she has a picture stashed away in an attic, or she can tap into one of the many energy vortexes rumored to be located across Sin City. Either way, Melinda possesses an endless supply of energy and a spring to her step. She is forever effervescent with a panache for Hello Kitty.
Of course, my mind immediately goes to the people she has interviewed and the places she has gone for assignments. When asked if she had any unique encounters while on assignment, she answered, “Needless to say, Vegas was the right place for me and has far exceeded my wildest dreams bringing me opportunities I never thought possible. I have interviewed the living Beatles, I have flown in a helicopter over a wheat field in Sweden with the creator of Absolut, Martha Stewart has given me marital advice, I have been to the Pahrump courthouse with Heidi Fleiss, and I have been blessed by Elton John on my 40th birthday — I have forgotten more extraordinary things than I will ever remember, but luckily most of them live somewhere on the web or in print.”
As Melinda is the epitome of professionalism, I asked her for additional details regarding her encounter with The Beatles because inquiring minds need to know. She states, “I remember tearing up after I interviewed Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, and Ron Howard — the impact of their creativity and seeing their body language and interaction, and Ringo hugged me. Celebrity doesn’t get bigger than that — and in their case, neither does talent. It is rare that those things converge in such an impactful way that touches the entire universe.” < Mic drop! >
I asked Melinda what distinguishes Las Vegas from other cosmopolitan cities and whether she would ever contemplate leaving the glitz and glamour. Her response was direct and to the point. “Less traffic, less local businesses, and less support for them – but it is growing. Traditionally, Vegas has been a transient community, but now we have a second generation who left and came back or those who are choosing to stay – we change slowly, but we have changed. We now have almost everything big cities do but with a small-town mentality. I always say Vegas is where you can’t go to the grocery store without makeup because it’s a small town. That hasn’t changed! I could not imagine a better life – the airport is 15 minutes away, and I can pretty much get anywhere in the world without a hassle. Plus, my mom is here. Through my connections with various publications, I now also have the chance to cover the world, so I am not limited to what happens in our backyard. Then again, all roads lead to Vegas!”
For those who may not be familiar with the print magazines that Melinda served on as editor mentioned at the beginning of this article, I will try my best to describe them. They were chic, modern, beautiful, and cutting-edge, and the content was perfectly balanced with visuals: text, graphics, subjects, and advertising. It was an era whereby no cost was spared on production. From the photoshoots, and swank layouts, to the thick paper stock and glossy print, they felt substantial and rich to the touch. These publications were designed with “luxury” in mind. You couldn’t wait to get the most recent issue every week, month, or quarter. The magazines were bountiful and free throughout Las Vegas and beyond. Unfortunately, due to increased costs associated with publishing and the pandemic, several publications completely disappeared from the market, or they have become a shadow of their former selves. The market had changed so severely that most could not adjust to survive. Wendoh Media, the publisher of Vegas Rated and Seven Magazine, was a casualty of that era. Fortunately, Melinda shares some of her all-time favorite magazine covers, of which she is the proudest. It is an honor to feature Melinda and her contribution in Chic Compass, as there is a shared admiration and respect to not only elevate Las Vegas’ arts and culture but also to reflect the city’s many dimensions of beauty.
Melinda’s influence on Las Vegas’ modern culture is significant. While cultivating the path forward, she remains humble, approachable, and authentic. “I just write the stories, and hopefully, people read them. I think I’ve been lucky that they’ve landed in national outlets, so hopefully, the world sees how cool we are and learns something new about Vegas. When I started writing a lot on the national level, most publications were still bringing writers in — what I think makes the difference is I am based here and have insider knowledge! Plus, a lot of what I write about now is how the tentacles of Vegas have spread across the world — many people I have met in Vegas are now doing big things elsewhere, so I follow those stories too.”
There is no doubt in my mind that in the not-too-distant future, Melinda will have the post of editor at a publication that is highly known internationally. This is a prediction that I can make with absolute certainty. The amount of talent that she possesses cannot be overstated in any way! I look forward with great enthusiasm to the achievements that are still to come for her.
