36 years ago this month

Seventy employees, including miners, mechanics, truckers and plant operators, are working a two-shift/seven-days-a-week schedule at Standard-Slagg, a mining operation located 15 miles southeast of Tecopa.

Standard-Slagg Mining Co. is digging over 2,000 tons of raw ore and shipping 2,400 tons of processed material daily. The company has a five-year contract with Japanese firms and has reserves of additional ore if the contract is extended.

Nevada bottle collectors will be in on a special event during Tonopah's Jim Butler Days when Gov. Mike O'Callaghan shatters the Ezra Brooks distillery's mold for the Jim Butler Days decanter.

Six thousand of the collector items will be produced beforehand in honor of the growing Memorial Day celebration.

The bottle depicts Jim Butler, silver nugget in hand, with his burro. The inscription reads, "Me and Jim found Tonopah, Nevada, May, 1900."

30 years ago this week

The Nye County School Board may hire an architect and a firm knowledgeable in raising school bonds to meet the need for more classrooms in the Pahrump Elementary School.

The board agreed to review a forthcoming growth study that will indicate how serious the need for more classrooms in Pahrump is becoming. The board discussed the merits of adding to the present building compared to temporary modular units or to all new construction.

Lincoln County voted out its legal brothels in a special election by a 2-1 margin.

In an effort led by District Attorney John McGimsey, voters overturned the November 1976 legalizing the brothels.

McGimsey sees the Lincoln County vote as a precedent-setting one. "I think it's a good precedent and hope that other counties follow suit. If people in Pahrump and Nye County don't want brothels, then they should vote them out just like we did." said McGimsey.

Indications are that Pahrump Valley will show a strong voter registration increase prior to the fall elections. Lita Blevins at the Nye County assessor's office in Pahrump has registered 92 new voters since March.

If the trend continues, it appears possible that for the first time there would be more registered voters in Pahrump Valley than in any other Nye County community.

20 years ago this week

The St. Joe Gold mining project is on schedule and appears likely to have 400 construction workers on the job.

About 225 permanent workers will be employed in the early part of next year at the mine and mill outside of Beatty near Rhyolite.

A major boost in the Tonopah economy also appears likely with Cypress Mining expected to complete its purchase agreement with Arco for the giant molybdenum-copper operation north of Tonopah. Cyprus expects to hire 150-200 people.

The county commissioners agreed to increase the sheriff's budget $130,000 to $2.48 million. Undersheriff Mark Zane said that is only half of what he needs to make up the $220,000 shortfall in wages and $45,000-50,000 in supplies facing his department.

Zane announced earlier that he was looking at cutting positions in Beatty, Amargosa Valley, Tonopah and Pahrump if budget demands were not met.

A long-awaited report on samples of unidentified substances found spilled at an abandoned gold-assaying operation off West Mesquite Road in Pahrump has concluded that the substances are not hazardous and pose no risk to public health or the environment.

The Nye County Sheriff's Office ordered that the public stay away from the site while tests of the substances were completed.

10 years ago this week

Rupert Bragg-Smith is tired of driving past skid marks and twisted metal during his daily commute on Highway 160. He's tired of reading terms in the newspaper like "overcorrected," "broadside skid," and "pronounced dead at the scene."

But most of all, he's tired of seeing people fiddle with their radio, talk on the phone or otherwise fail to do the one thing they ought to be doing when they are behind the wheel -- concentrate on the road.

An 11-year-old Pahrump boy has landed himself in trouble with the law -- how much trouble will depend on how serious he was about setting off a suspected stink bomb at Rosemary Clarke Middle School.

The Nye County Sheriff's Office is in the process of having a white powder that was confiscated from the boy analyzed to determine what it is and what it might have done if ignited.

If it is something harmless the boy won't be charged with anything more serious that perpetrating a hoax.

There is a mood of heightened optimism that Nye County will prevail over the Justice Department in the battle for the right to collect beneficial use taxes from private contractors at the Nevada Test Site. Should the county prevail; taxes from NTS contractors will mean hundreds of thousands of dollars annually for the county and the school district.