| CURRENT WEATHER: Clear, 50° |
|
|
|
||
|
||||
|
May 21, 2004
A fond farewell to Pahrump
After I put in the new bulb, a woman in the parking lot offered me some clear tape to tape up the glass on the headlight. "Now you'll look like a Pahrumpian," she said. That seems to summarize my feelings about the "Heart of the New Old West", where the majority of people are unpretentious but friendly and willing to help. We don't try to look like movie stars and drive real fancy cars, we're just plain folks. That made it easy to get to know half the people in this town. As I drive out of town today almost four and a half years later, I feel certain nostalgia for Pahrump, like a high school graduation. Unfortunately there's always been a feeling of inferiority to our big brother, Las Vegas. The fact Pahrump is only 65 miles away from the big metropolis of Sin City has been part of the reason Pahrump doesn't have many of the things it needs. Unfortunately I'll miss the groundbreaking for the new Pahrump hospital, which has been by far the biggest issue in this valley. I recall talking to Roy Barraclough, then administrator of Pahrump Medical Center, after a Pahrump hospital board meeting at E.B.'s Deli soon after arriving in Pahrump, as he detailed efforts to find a company to build a hospital. Hopefully, my next visit to Pahrump I'll see that shiny, new hospital completed along Wilson Road. Maybe the fairgrounds will be under construction too. It's hard to find another place like Pahrump. Many issues that are routine elsewhere are a major point of contention here. Government meetings are packed with spectators. Where else can a reporter cover Yucca Mountain, the Nevada Test Site, legalized prostitution, take a free sub-machine gun course at the Front Sight Firearms Institute and cover all the growing pains of a community rapidly turning into a city? Other established communities, like my previous hometown of Elko, had water and sewer lines and all the trappings of infrastructure. Now I think it'd be a real bore covering any other community of 30,000. While cleaning out my filing cabinets I was reminded of some of the big stories in the last few years: the school bus hijacking, the dissolution of the Pahrump hospital board, the closure of the Nye County government complex and Pahrump Valley High School due to mold, the opening of the Pahrump Nugget Casino, the Dyer case, the Mountain View Casino fire, the list goes on. Probably the low point during my time here was on Jan. 26, 2001, when a full page advertisement in the Pahrump Valley Times asked why anyone would want to support the Pahrump Valley View, my newspaper at the time, after a few stories written by a Las Vegas Review-Journal reporter alarmed prospective homebuyers about our dwindling water supply. It was replete with some not very flattering comments about Pahrump. The high point during my time in Pahrump would have to be the past two weeks, when I've been the toast of numerous people wishing me well in my endeavors. I've been truly humbled to hear the thanks from so many people for the good coverage of Pahrump. When Stephens Media acquired the Pahrump Valley Times it was a no-brainer moving from my office at the View on Highway 160 over to the PV Times office on Calvada Boulevard. I sat next to Henry Brean and Doug McMurdo at countless meetings and we were friends as well as colleagues in the business. Hopefully I was able to continue a practice of publicizing some of the good news about this community, like I did at the Pahrump Valley View, as well as the hard news. In a community that's divided between various groups, hopefully the merger united people who either liked the Times or liked the View. It's an awesome responsibility being a reporter. I read some of my columns on the Internet and thought about what a prestigious position I enjoy in the community. I'm taking off for a sojourn in Southeast Asia. Unfortunately, unless we live in Europe where they enjoy five and six week vacations; quitting a job is a necessity to get some extended time off. But soon I'll be enjoying a luxury that's more precious than money: time. Now I'll be able to ignore the clock ticking, take time to smell the roses and carry on a conversation without being in a hurry. All too often we spend our whole lives running around from place to place, pretty soon the years go by and we're old and gray. I have a superstition, if I turn around to look at a place when I drive out of town it means I'll be back. I'm sure, savoring the warm sendoff I've had in Pahrump, I'll turn around to look at this town one more time when I head down Highway 160. Write to Mark Waite at mwaite@pvtimes.com. |
