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It's time to nominate candidates for the 2009 Pahrump Valley High School Athletics Hall of Fame.

June 1 is the deadline for submitting your nominations.

We want to beat the deadline, so here are my nominations:

* Tim Hafen. In 1971, he was the lone Nye County representative in the Nevada state legislature. It was he who proposed that a high school be constructed in the Pahrump Valley; that story appeared in the January 1971 edition of the then montly Nevada West Pahrump Valley Times.

Said Hafen: "We have a need for a high school now ... the future needs may be a disaster." More than 70 Pahrump Valley students were being bused daily to Death Valley High School in Shoshone."

The logic for such a nomination is quite apparent. Without Hafen pushing for such a project, who knows when the Pahrump Valley would have gotten its high school? The building opened two years later.

My top 10 nominees include athletes Ashley Hastings ... Lori Hopkins ... Jake Towles ... Josh Schultz ... Alaine Garrett ... Derrell Smith ... Mike Elliott ... John Turner ... Jared Dillman.

There are several other prospective candidates, but other Hall of Fame committee members will be nominating them. A selection meeting is scheduled tentatively for June 5.

To be eligible, an athlete must have graduated no later than the PVHS Class of 2004. In order to be inducted, a candidate must receive a 2/3 majority vote from the Hall of Fame committee.

Other categories for nomination include athletics contributors and school district employees.

Hall of Fame Night will be Sept. 25, when Las Vegas Bonanza visits for a Sunset Region Southwest Class 4-A Division football game.

If anyone has questions, call the PVHS athletics department at 775-727-7908.

Send your nominations to:

PVHS Athletics Office

Hall of Fame Nomination

501 E. Calvada Blvd.

Pahrump, NV 89048

Fax: 775-751-4043.

The Hall of Fame currently includes:

Class of 2007

Richard Empey, Mike Floyd, Ron and Charlotte Floyd, Al Giannotti, Larry Goins, Mike Kruse, Shari Longden Gals, Rod Poteete, Charles Stevens, Maggie Veloz Villa, Janelle Ward, Misti Ward Scott, Don Worden and Ray and Irene Wulfenstein.

Class of 2008

Jeff Caha, Kelly Costley Buffi, Neil Cowley, Ray DePalma, Melodie Sturgeon Eleogram, Amy Ellenwood, Felicia Fahey, Carl Kaucky, Gary Nerger and the Pahrump Valley Youth Golf Founders Club.

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Some disa and data, realizing that some days we are the pigeons, other days we are the statues ...

Nye County track and field teams are at Del Sol High School today, seeking state championships. If you have the opportunity to travel to Las Vegas today, check out the action, which starts at 3 p.m.

For Pahrump Valley, Ashley Rencher (shot put and discus) has a chance to claim Nevada Class 4-A titles in those events ... Alex Anderson will give it a solid go in the triple jump ... Nick Stearns is in tough company in the pole vault ... Ashley Lindgren will be a contender for the 800-meter podium finish.

The Beatty girls team will be going after a state 1-A championship, to go with the regional title the Hornets won last weekend.

And let's see how many individual titles Round Mountain's Kattrena Akers can add to her already impressive resume.

If you are going for sheer spectacle, then enjoy the considerable talents of the Western boys and girls track teams. They know speed is the name of the game ... and expect Western's highly-talented athletes to turn it loose.

* Pahrump Valley football coach Leo Verzilli held his second preseason team and parents meeting Monday night. Let's put it this way; if you plan to play football for the Trojans in the 2009 season, you had better already be working out, lifting weights, running, eating right -- and behaving, as well as maintaining passing grades in every academic subject.

In the near future, summer schedules for boys and girls basketball camps, as off-season volleyball, will be published, so if you're interested in those sports, it wouldn't hurt to start getting into shape.