36 years ago this month

An effort to bring a modular home factory to Pahrump Valley is under way by a company headed by Bob Craig, a construction man who served as project manager for Blont-Yoken during the building of the Union Plaza in Las Vegas.

Associated with Craig is Roy Bracken, who spent nine years as a general manager of construction for Greater Western Home Manufacturers, Indio, Calif.

If the plant becomes a reality, production could be under way this year, with an expected initial work force of about 40 workers.

One of Nevada's best horsewomen is a 14-year-old girl named Jamie Lynn Slife. Last year she racked up enough horse show points to beat all men, women and children in the state.

Her 5-year-old quarter horse, Sunset Ben Too, was named the all-around champion by the Nevada State Horsemen's Association.

Slife performed in 17 Las Vegas shows last year and 30 overall. This meant traveling to Colorado, Idaho, Arizona and Utah. "It's OK, though. I like horse shows better than concerts anyway," she said.

30 years ago this week

The possibility of forming an unincorporated town in the Amargosa Valley is being proposed.

An informal steering committee is doing a study of the concept and a general public meeting for discussion of the idea is expected.

The idea emerged recently as an avenue to financing various local projects, including Amargosa's share of a proposed television relay system that will bring three network channels from Las Vegas to Beatty, Amargosa and Oasis valleys.

The main reason for opposing formation of a town twice in the past years was probably due to the possibility of an altered tax structure, according to County Commissioner Don Barnett.

Nye County has applied for about 1780 acres of BLM land in the south end of Pahrump Valley for use as a regional airport.

The property is south of Gamebird Road and west of Pahrump Valley Boulevard. The location is a bit west of the 2,480 acres requested from BLM by Russ Avery and Al Gerstler in their efforts to acquire property for a privately financed and operated airport.

The county airport would be built with 95 percent federal money and five percent county funds.

20 years ago this week

Saddle West appears to have found a buyer.

Gaming Control member Gerald Cunningham said it's his understanding "they have come up with a bona fide buyer and met the terms of our earlier agreement."

Saddle West Consultant Jack Sanders said recently that three or four prospective buyers were in negotiation for the property and a sale announcement was expected right away.

Saddle West came under pressure from the state gaming authorities last year to sell, following reports of alleged skimming and other irregularities. No charges have been filed and the owner has denied any wrongdoing.

Lt. Gov. Bob Miller said Nevadans must continue to fight the proposed nuclear waste repository.

In an interview with the Times, between sessions at the state-sponsored meeting on tourism at Saddle West in Pahrump, Miller said, "Certainly the odds are becoming more stacked against us" in the state's fight to keep the nation's first high-level nuclear waste dump from being located in Nevada. "I think the significant danger is in the area of transportation," Miller said.

Miller doesn't trust the federal government on the repository issue. "I think they keep secret information from us, as much as possible."

The Air Force would gain exclusive use of 89,000 acres of Central Nevada land until the year 2007, if the Senate passes a bill. The land is at Groom Lake, a highly secret part of the Nellis Air Force Range where the government is believed to be testing top-secret military aircraft, including the Stealth bomber.

The Air Force's jurisdiction over the land expires at the end of the month. The Air Force created controversy in 1984 when they took control of the area without legal authority. Congress later approved temporary withdrawals of the land from public domain.

10 years ago this week

A change in the way the state computes a community's total valuation, coupled with a change in the distribution of the taxes collected on it, will mean the town's rate for property taxes will rise 2.68 cents.

According to town accountant Michael Cox, present when the Pahrump Town Board held its annual tentative budget hearing, the new system is reflected in a budget line item called a consolidated tax, under the heading of intergovernmental revenues.

Cox told the board he developed his preliminary numbers based on the assumption the board would, by necessity, implement the 16 percent property tax increase.

While the board took no action on the proposed increase, decisions made during the remainder of the four-hour hearing were based on the higher tax rate.

Pahrump's Lucky day arrives; we will no longer be a one-grocery-store town.

Lucky -- Pahrump's second chain supermarket and easily its largest -- will open its doors at 5 p.m. after a full day of festivities in the parking lot at Highway 160 and Basin.

The Lucky opening will come about nine hours after Pahrump's first major chain drug store Sav-on, opens it's doors, roughly 100 feet away, during an 8 a.m. ribbon cutting ceremony.

The man suspected of driving the getaway car during Pahrump's first bank robbery, Jan. 22, pleaded guilty to armed robbery and conspiracy charges in New Mexico.

Herman Lee Joe, 38, is facing up to 25 years in prison for his role in a pair of robberies of two convenience stores in the Farmington, N.M., area last year. Alberto De La Fuente, 24, is the man accused of orchestrating the New Mexico robberies, the Pahrump State Bank robbery, and several other robberies in the Four Corners area.

San Juan County Assistant District Attorney June Stein expects to begin working on a plea agreement soon. The attorney for De La Fuente, has expressed a willingness to negotiate, but a deal has been delayed by some additional charges.

For well over a year, the only long and winding road in Rupert Bragg-Smith's life was a metaphorical one - a symbol of his protracted fight to buy land from the federal government to open an advanced driving school on the far southeastern edge of Pahrump.

Now that road is a literal one, twisting through the sloping desert, crossing over a small tunnel and emptying onto a large pad of pavement three football fields long and dotted with brightly colored Corvettes and Camaros.

It's been a long time coming, as Bragg-Smith's plan to open the advanced driving school in Pahrump Valley began in September 1996.