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Happy holidays (Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year's, and whatever else ya'all will be celebrating the next few weeks ...

And because it's the holiday season, let's have some fun .... sort of.

Pahrump Valley is going to build a second high school. Assuming that is fact, we got together a group of people to suggest names, mascots and colors for the school, to be built on Gamebird Road, near the Pahrump Valley Boulevard intersection.

The names, mascots and colors:

Pioneer High Drovers, with the colors red and white;

Wulfenstein High Wranglers (maroon and gray);

Gamebird High Ravens (gold and black)

Scorpion High Intimidators (orange and black);

Volunteer High Patriots (red, white and blue);

Lake Valley High Roadrunners (burnt orange and navy);

Desert Valley High Dust Devils (gold and black).

What's your suggestion?

E-mail walkingman64@excite.com with your ideas.

This is not a contest, by the way, but we'd like to know what you are thinking ...

We were on a working vacation last week, taking a few days off before going to Damonte Ranch High School in Reno for the Tonopah-Carlin Class A state championship football game.

That Tonopah untracked the Railroaders 54-20 was exciting for Mucker fans, who traveled en masse to the game -- and witnessed the school's first-ever state football championship.

We thought how exciting it would be for Pahrump Valley High School to have an athletics complex similar to Damonte Ranch's (artificial turf field for football and soccer combined) and plenty of parking spaces.

And we had to admire the coaching job Curt McElroy and his two assistants (Frank Gonzalez and Jeff Harrison) did this season: 11 wins in 12 games playing the Nevada Pistol offense (shotgun-option) with an untried junior running back (Scott Thibodeaux) at quarterback.

Tonopah fans, don't panic. But we couldn't help thinking that Pahrump Valley needs someone like McElroy to direct its football program.

Just four years ago, Tonopah was coming off many so-so campaigns in the 11-man 2-A game; the Muckers are 34-11 (18-0 in Central Division games and 6-3 in the playoffs) under McElroy's coaching-teaching discipline.

McElroy as coach .... Larry Goins as athletics director/administrator ... Stuff dreams are made of ...

We wonder aloud about:

----How long will it take to complete the reconstruction of the Pahrump Valley High School gym?

----What has happened to the project concerning the reconstruction of the football stadium bleachers?

----What is the latest dish on the head football coaching job?

----When the second high school is built, what kind of athletics facilities will it have?

(We have to hope that they are significantly better than what the present school has ...)