Thanks, all

As long time participants in the Pahrump Fall Festival, the Pahrump Valley Cruisers want to thank all the fairgoers who purchased raffle tickets or T-shirts at our club booth.

It is due to your generosity that we are able to donate $250 to the Pahrump Boys and Girls Club and $250 to the Amargosa Valley Athletic Department.

The Pahrump Valley Cruisers is a nonprofit club of vintage car enthusiasts. All money earned through the club projects is donated to various youth groups in the area. Meetings are held on the second Monday of each month, 6:30 p.m. at Seemore's Too.

Again, thank you to all those fairgoers who made this project a success.

JAMES H. GALLAGHER

Pahrump Valley Cruisers

Meth war

I just got a flyer from Congressman Dean Heller telling me that Nye County is going to get $75,000 to fight transportation of meth from Mexico. It would make more sense to stop it at the border than to try to catch up with it in Nevada.

The money was part of his securing house approval of $700,000 for fighting meth for northern Nevada. I guess that Las Vegas is lily white and doesn't need any help.

It seems to me that the drug war has been going on forever and nothing has changed except the type of drugs. When that war was started, nobody had heard of crack or meth, just pot and heroin.

The drug war makes as much sense as the war on terrorism. If there was a real problem, the ports and borders would have been secured on Sept. 12.

RICHARD A. BROWN

Defense of Pat Watson

I am very disappointed at the public reprimand of Pat Watson for an event that occurred at the Wild West Extravaganza. Apparently there were a few people unhappy about her interrupting the pastor during the Sunday service to remind him that he was nearing the end of his allotted time.

Although the disapproval was vocal, there was no mention of thanks given to Pat for the tremendous job she has done all through the year and throughout the entire extravaganza to insure that things were done in a timely manner. Thanks to Pat's efforts, the entire event was well organized and timely. As a performer, I certainly appreciate that. We were all given our time slots and asked to be respectful of those time frames which, by the way, we all agreed to as part of our role in the event.

If this particular situation was not handled to everyone's liking, then it should have been resolved right then and there -- not publicly in the newspaper as many of the people in this town are getting accustomed to doing. Okay, so express your disapproval and be done with it instead of dragging it into the public eye.

I was present at some of the meetings leading up to the Wild West Extravaganza and I know of all of the time and effort that went into planning this event. I was also present and enjoyed the Sunday service. Some people felt embarrassed and angered that anyone would have the gumption to interrupt their pastor during a sermon no matter how long it dragged on. They publicly apologized to him and publicly chastised Pat for what they thought was indignant behavior.

Sorry pastor, I think it was your responsibility to insure that in the first place, there was no need for a reminder, and secondly to handle the situation without letting it become a negative circumstance. As a leader with your congregation and within this community, I believe it is your responsibility to insure there is positive action taken.

The public response by a few members of your congregation which, albeit was meant to show respect for you, only shed a negative light on you and your church. I am very disheartened by the way you responded to the situation and how you let this whole thing become a public spectacle at the extravaganza as well as in the newspaper.

It is not always the way things happen that matter; what matters most is our response to those things. Are the sermons you provide only rhetoric that you preach to the rest of us? Your actions certainly spoke more loudly and clearly than the rest of your sermon. You absolutely have a right to disagree with anything. However, you have a responsibility to respond with dignity. You are the one owing the apology. Some of the rest of us may have been inspired during our performances. However, we followed the rules and were respectful of our time frames and our fellow performers.

TERI ROGERS

Where are the guts

Our small town of Pahrump has a real problem with illegals and our "powers that be" apparently do not have a clue as to what can be done to take care of this problem. Guts on their part and a sincere desire to serve the people of Pahrump doesn't seem too far out of line.

Our Governor and state legislators have the right and duty to provide protection for the residents of Nevada if the federal legislators can not or will not provide us with the protection against invasion and destruction by "financial terrorists," illegal aliens.

The state and local governments of Oklahoma, Arizona, Colorado and Georgia, which all have enforcement of our immigration laws, have realized a huge number of illegal aliens moving out of their states. This should be some kind of indicator even for the "do-gooders" and "bleeding hearts" who support these illegal aliens.

In the state of Georgia, they simply passed a law that the immigration laws must be complied with by state governments and residents, with existing federal laws using available federal tools.

Just how hard is that to understand?

Furthermore, it is not unconstitutional or a division of church and state, so the ACLU can not spend any more of our money in court cases against U.S. citizens.

USA Today featured articles on illegal immigrants and their devastating effect on our economy. Also in the article, the gave a good display of the anti-American conduct of Senator Harry Reid for Mexico by the way that he has voted against English being the official language of the United States and has tried everything in the underhanded book to get our borders removed so everyone has free access to rape and pillage our country without fear of any consequence.

BILL DAWSON