36 years ago this month

A recommendation to cancel the planned Nye County school bond election to raise money for the Pahrump Valley High School was expected from the office of Nye County District Attorney Bill Beko.

"It looks like we'll have all of the back tax money the county won in the Test Site suit by Nov. 1," said Beko. "The county commission has already indicated the intention to spend the expected revenue on capital improvements, mainly on Pahrump Valley High School. With the money in hand, the bond election wouldn't be necessary."

"Like to Sin with Elinor Glyn?" This leering chant echoed through the mining camps of Tonopah, Goldfield and Rawhide in 1908.

For Elinor Glyn, the naughty English novelist who had stunned the world with the erotic book "Three Weeks," was coming to southern Nevada. Europe had banned the scandalous publication and the defiant and lovely Elinor set off for America.

Nevadans hearing of her flamboyant beauty and reputation as a scarlet woman eagerly urged her to visit their state. Many wild events were staged to impress the English authoress with the savagery of the untamed frontier of Nevada.

30 years ago this week

A new ambulance, fire station and expansion of the Pahrump Complex were all okayed or confirmed by the Nye County Commission.

The ambulance will become the primary vehicle for the volunteer service, with the present older unit being retained as a backup. The board also approved an ambulance purchase for Amargosa Valley and tentatively one for Nye General Hospital.

Bids on the Pahrump Valley fire substation on Kellogg Road, and two others -- one in Amargosa Valley and a third in Currant Creek -- will be opened at the next meeting.

Nye County workers were granted pay increases and adjustments retroactive to July 1 by the Nye County Commission. The action follows an eight-county study which compared Nye's pay with the other rural counties.

The new pay levels now make Nye County pay comparable to that of the other counties studied. The increases are either for a 6 percent raise or an adjustment that brings the scale in line with comparable pay in comparable Nevada areas.

Sheriff's deputies have long awaited the study. New deputies without experience have been starting with a pay scale of $773 but will now start at $892. Low pay is believed to be one reason the county has had a large turnover of deputies in the past.

20 years ago this week

Amargosa Valley is one of about three areas being considered as the site for a missile engine test facility to be moved from southern California by a Los Angeles-based Defense Department contractor.

According to Amargosa Valley Town Advisory Board Chairman Bill Copeland, chances are "very promising" that Amargosa Valley will be chosen as the site when National Technical Systems Inc. closes its Saugus, Calif., testing facility and relocates.

Company officials are looking for 3,000 to 5,000 acres; they will hire 20 people for the construction phase of the project and about 300 or more when construction is complete.

A $2.25 billion contract that "assumes business as usual" at the Nevada Test Site was approved between the U.S. Department of Energy and the test site's primary contractor, Reynolds Electrical and Engineering Co. Inc.

The five-year contract is still considered tentative because Congress must give its approval each year for appropriations to the Energy Department. The last contract between REECo., and the Energy Department was a $2 billion pact approved in 1983.

10 years ago this week

The only conclusive evidence of Ted Binion's Sept. 17 death is the lack of a heartbeat, and enough of two drugs in his body to stop that heart.

Clark County Coroner Ron Flud said Binion's body had lethal amounts of an opiate, likely heroin, and Alprazolam, a stress-related prescription medicine more commonly know as Xanax.

"Either one could have caused death," he said, adding Binion's death shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone.

For the last five years, Dave Mattsen worked as the foreman at the late Ted Binion's 200-acre Pahrump ranch. In the last two weeks, Mattsen has lost his boss, his job and, for one of those weeks, his freedom.

After serving seven days in jail and now faced with criminal prosecution on four felonies and a gross misdemeanor, he remains grief-stricken over Binion's recent death from a mysterious drug overdose.

His apparent loyalty to the controversial former casino owner could put him behind bars for as long as 40 years. Mattsen was one of three men arrested in connection with several million dollars worth of silver unearthed from an underground vault.

"The end result is all this was done because that's what Ted asked us to do," Mattsen said. First they buried the silver around three months earlier at the old cotton gin, and then they tried to help Binion again when they dug it up.