George Washington University alumna Elaine Wynn

She is the grande dame of Las Vegas, one half of a formidable duo that built an empire of casinos, entertainment and luxury on The Strip, forever changing the face of the city. Yet there is another side to Elaine Wynn, one that has a great deal to do with changing the future of education for at-risk children, and one that regularly brings her to Washington, where she swears she feels like a local. “I graduated from George Washington University, which a lot of people don’t realize,” says Wynn, who has homes in several cities, including Vegas, New York and Sun Valley, Idaho. “I majored in political science. Washington was a very prominent place for me as a young woman”—and still to this day, as Wynn is chairman of the Arlington-based Communities in Schools, one of the largest national nonprofit organizations designed to help students stay in school. “We serve over 1.3 million kids in 25 states and DC; it’s a very ambitious program,” says Wynn. Her involvement began years ago, after she became concerned with the alarming dropout rates in Nevada. “The more I discovered about the issue on a local level, the more I determined that it was really a national crisis,” she says. Wynn now lobbies regularly on behalf of CIS, focusing on funding and education policy and visiting with members of Congress to spread her message.

Education isn’t the only thing on Wynn’s plate. She is also a member of the board of trustees of The Kennedy Center, appointed to the post by President Obama in July 2010. “Outside of education, one of my other great passions is the arts,” explains Wynn, who cochaired “John F. Kennedy: A 50th Anniversary Celebration,” in honor of JFK’s inauguration. “Every time you’re exposed to something that moves you, you want to reach out. Just because you may live in one city, it doesn’t mean you should be confined to that city.” Additionally, Wynn last year became a member of the Library of Congress Trust Fund board. “Nothing I do is in isolation,” she says of her philanthropic work. “The arts, education, culture, preservation—they are all things I have loved in my life, and I’m committed to helping as much as I can.”

Wynn has a personal connection to the city, as well. Her warm acquaintance with First Lady Michelle Obama (“One of the first public visits she made after the president took office was to a CIS school in Anacostia,” says Wynn proudly) and friendships with local notables like Ron and Beth Dozoretz and Dan and Rhoda Glickman keep her socially active, and she is a bona fide political insider: Her cousin James Cole was recently sworn in as deputy attorney general of the United States. “I love the idea that I can come to Washington and it still feels very residential and domestic to me,” says Wynn. “I’ve started to establish a pattern here. It feels like home.”