Desert Companion - March 2019 by Nevada Public Radio

SPORTS

& LEISURE

ISSUE

INSPIRING MEET THE COACHES AND MENTORS LEADING YOUR KIDS THROUGH A NEW BOOM IN YOUTH SPORTS

E AT E R TA I N M E N T

SMILE WHEN YOU CHEW THAT! BY LISSA TOW N S E N D RODGERS

JESSIE FREMONT

UNSUNG FRONTIER GENIUS B Y S A L LY DENTON

LV ’ S S T R I V I N G COMEDIANS

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VOLUME 17 ISSUE 3 D E S E R T C O M P A N I O N .V E G A S

March FEATURES

KIDS AND PLAY

As youth sports boom in Southern Nevada, tomorrow’s star athletes learn grit and good sportsmanship By Matt Jacob

MENTORS

Meet the coaches and youth leaders inspiring the valley’s young athletes to new heights By Paul Szydelko

09 YOUTH SPORTS

Two young women wrestling their way to the top By Heidi Kyser

10 LAMENT

A few words about the end of Bonnie Springs — and the future of Red Rock By James P. Reza

12 GAMING LAW

The DOJ’s new take on an old gambling law threatens the lucrative business of internet gaming By Chris Sieroty

18 LOCAL FLAVOR

It’s honey that matters: everything you need to know about the local bee biz By Sonja Swanson

tastes like “crispy ocean”? Street Foodie has the deets.

23 DANGLIN’!

A spirited roundup of local ziplines By Stephanie Madrid

26 DINING

Entertaining eating for the Instagram era By Lissa Townsend Rodgers

30 VISUAL ART

A sweeping retrospective charts the evolutions in the old-meets-new work of Sush Machida By Dawn-Michelle Baude

32 HOT SEAT

STREET FOODIE

You want a dish that

March’s cultural highlights

DEPARTMENTS 34 HISTORY

Frontier genius: Jessie Frémont By Sally Denton

44 ENTERTAINMENT

Open-mic comedy nights with the laff pack By Mike Weatherford

( EXTRAS ) 6

EDITOR’S NOTE

THE GUIDE

Here we are now, entertain us — exhibits, concerts, shows, events, and miscellaneous chungo to fill your calendar

SPORTS

& LEISURE

ISSUE

INSPIRING MEET THE COACHES AND MENTORS LEADING YOUR KIDS THROUGH A NEW BOOM IN YOUTH SPORTS

E AT E R TA I N M E N T

SMILE WHEN YOU CHEW THAT! BY LISSA TOW N S E N D RODGERS

JESSIE FREMONT

UNSUNG FRONTIER GENIUS B Y S A L LY DENTON

LV ’ S S T R I V I N G COMEDIANS

4 | DESERT

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MARCH 2019

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Editor’s Note

FIELD NOTES I

love me some cracky, brain-liquefying video games as much as the next middle-aged man-child in a state of hopeless arrested development (which he romanticizes by embracing the fiction that playing Overwatch until 3 a.m. signals some vital, puckish, youthful élan), but, uh, yeah, I do wonder whether this era of immersive digitalia is creating a generational wave of drooly and glaze-eyed slothchildren. Sometimes it seems like we’ve forgotten that we live in bodies, that we are bodies. I’m happy to see my dystopian pessimism challenged by this month’s feature, “More Than Child’s Play,” by Matt Jacob (p. 50). Las Vegas, you may have noticed, is suddenly a sports town all up in here, and this new look is more than a mere cosmetic spackling. Evidence: the Cambrian explosion of community-grown youth sports programs and organizations dedicated to activating young bodies and minds. And this isn’t an isolated phenom taking place parallel to Knights fever and Raiders mania. Better yet, there’s a kind of goodwill connectivity at work here that speaks volumes about the character of our valley’s professional sports teams. For example, both the Vegas Golden Knights and Las Vegas Lights have formed partnerships with our youth leagues, offering inspiration and instruction — and, of course, big shiny sports stardom dreams that may not be that far out of reach. It reinforces the fact that Vegas’ underrated sense of community extends even to the realm of competitive sports. Hey, maybe the kids are alright.

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Desert Companion is published 12 times a year by Nevada Public Radio, 1289 S. Torrey Pines Dr., Las Vegas, NV 89146. It is available by subscription at desertcompanion.vegas, or as part of Nevada Public Radio membership. It is also distributed free at select locations in the Las Vegas Valley. All photos, artwork and ad designs printed are the sole property of Desert Companion and may not be duplicated or reproduced without the written permission of the publisher. The views of Desert Companion contributing writers are not necessarily the views of Desert Companion or Nevada Public Radio. Contact Tammy Willis for back issues, which are available for purchase for $7.95.

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A LL IN

9 PEOPLE, ISSUES, OBJECTS, EVENTS, IDEAS AND CURIOSITIES YOU SHOULD BE AWARE OF THIS MONTH.

PEYTON PRUSSIN AGE, DIVISION: 17 years old, USA Junior WEIGHT: 112 pounds USA WRESTLING RANK: No. 2 HIGH POINT: Second place, 2018 Women’s

STERLING DIAS

Wrestling National Championships, Irving, Texas

AGE, DIVISION: 15 years old, USA Cadet WEIGHT: 95 pounds USA WRESTLING RANK: No. 1 HIGH POINT: Bronze medal, 2018 World Wrestling Championships, Zagreb, Croatia

ONE | YO U T H S P O R T S

Top of Their Game Las Vegas girls are grappling their way to excellence in wrestling BY

PHOTOGRAPHY

Sabin Orr

Heidi Kyser

t’s Bill Sullivan’s job, as the team lead and international director for Team Nevada, to talk up his athletes. And yet, as he gives examples showing how well the sport of women’s wrestling has done in the state, there’s an edge to his voice that goes beyond pride. “Nevada has 146 female athletes that certified at the beginning of the wrestling season,” he says. “In other states like California and Hawaii, that have a legacy of female wrestling, they have thousands. … And we had three girls from Nevada make the USA National Team last year for the 13-16 age group”— including the two from Southern Nevada, profiled here. And that’s happened in relatively little time, too. Marina Scott, secretary of USA Nevada Wrestling, says the organization has really only been promoting the girls’ sport for six to eight years. “The Nevada Interscholastic Athletic Association gave high MARCH 2019

D E S E R T C O M PA N I O N

school girls permission to wrestle wherever they want to (not just their own school) as a way to help grow their numbers,” Scott says. “There are so few of them, and practice time with other members of the sport is critical in wrestling.” Sullivan believes that wrestling gives kids something they can’t get in other sports. “The confidence that they get, the work ethic — it’s incredible to watch them morph from the girls they are when they walk into the room to the women they are when they leave the season.”

is coming,” Dias says. “She’s comfortable with being uncomfortable.” Prussin’s devotion to wrestling is paying off in tangible ways. She recently committed to Life University in Marietta, Georgia, which lured her with a wrestling scholarship. She’ll start there in the fall. “Their coaches came to Vegas to help me train,” she says. “They flew me out there to train as a junior over the summer. They’ve been there for me since Day 1, not just when I was No. 1. It means a lot when someone believes in you for who you are.” ✦

wrestling program, but also because she herself only started the sport three years ago, persuaded by her father and friends to give it a try. Before that, like Dias, Prussin was into martial arts. She took to wrestling immediately. “I was always an independent person, and in wrestling, it’s all on you. It’s your choice to win. You can control the way you’re going to wrestle, the way the match is going to go.” Dias describes Prussin’s style as methodical and, yet, instantaneous. “She doesn’t really think; she just responds to whatever

STERLING DIAS WAS a physical girl who wasn’t

interested in stereotypically female sports, such as cheer and dance, so at 5 she started judo and jiu-jitsu. A year later, influenced by her older brothers, she tried wrestling because, as she puts it, “I wanted to see what it would be like to beat up on some people.” Turns out, she’s well-suited to beating up on people — particularly boys, with whom she did the majority of her wrestling until recently, due to the low number of girls in the sport. “I liked beating up on boys,” she says. “It made me feel better about myself.” Nine years on, Dias hardly remembers a life before wrestling. She loves it not just because of the physicality, but also because it’s taken her to tournaments around the world, where she’s gotten to experience other cultures with her teammate friends. She attributes her success to quick reflexes and hard work. “I’m very small and compact,” she says. “So I have to use my speed against strong girls.”

THAT PEYTON PRUSSIN is ranked so highly in her class is remarkable not only because of the relative immaturity of Nevada’s female

February 2019: Bill submitted to Legislature to expand Clark County Commission from seven to nine members.

Future History of Governing Body Expansions 10 | D E S E R T

C O M PA N I O N

MARCH 2019

TWO | L A M E N T

Bonnie Springs Eternal The closure of the quirky petting zoo suggests a new era for Red Rock: from recreation area to suburban enclave BY

James P. Reza

can’t recall the first time my parents took me on what became a regular visit to Bonnie Springs Ranch, but it was before its ghost town replica opened in 1974. Those childhood memories consist of feeding the ducks at the pond and gorging myself on a French dip by the fireplace, followed by a drive home on an undulating, two-lane blacktop twisting through the pitch-black desert. Rounding the easterly bend of Nevada Route 159, where homes now sit, I could see the lights of Las Vegas twinkling in the far distance. Recently, I began to rediscover Bonnie Springs. Over the holidays, I was frequently drawn to this picturesque spot in Red Rock — searching, it would

2020: County Commission expands to 22 members, so it can field two teams in municipal softball league, doubling chances of finally beating Bunkerville Town Advisory Board.

2020: In response, Henderson City Council expands to 302,539 members, denies it suffers from “little city syndrome.”

2021: After 38 consecutive recall elections, all that’s left of Las Vegas City Council is a shortcircuiting Amazon Echo. Few changes are noticed.

2022: County Commission reverts back to seven members, using new taxpayerfunded Thunderdome to determine who keeps seats.

2025: The Emperor dissolves the Senate, putting authority in the hands of regional governors, believing fear will keep the local systems in line.

B R A I N I L LU S T R AT I O N : S C OT T L I E N

D E S E R T C O M P A N I O N .V R G A S

seem, for a connection to the Las Vegas I once knew, a rekindling of my love affair with my hometown. Each time I made the drive, my stress would dissipate. I’d roll down the windows and let the fresh desert air stream in and take me back. The smell of sage, the gorgeous Spring Mountains, the rush of blood through my heart, the comfort of home. I woke to the news of the sale of Bonnie Springs Ranch the same way anyone wakes to sad news: This. Can’t. Be. True. But it was as true as any pending deal can be, and more heartbreaking than the casino implosions I witnessed. Unlike those disposable assets waiting for the next reinvention, Bonnie Springs seemed a permanent fixture on the Mojave horizon. In any growing metropolis, permanence is mostly an illusion; in Las Vegas, it seems an impossibility. The zoning necessary to remake the ranch into homes was already there, the Las Vegas boomtown mindset was already there. The end, in retrospect, was inevitable. But redeveloping Bonnie Springs does raise questions about the rest of the Red Rock area. The growth of Las Vegas means more residents, more visitors, more development parked right on nature’s doorstep. Compared to 25 years ago, Red Rock today reads like an urban wilderness park akin to the Phoenix Mountains Preserve in Arizona. There are already two enclaves of rugged (or rich) individualists living out there, in Calico Basin and Blue Diamond. All told, about 1,960 acres is zoned for commercial development, including a shooting range. And while that’s only about 1 percent of the total Red Rock Conservation Area, it’s not hard to imagine other redevelopments following. While few may have an emotional attachment to a gun range, more than 50,000 have signed an online petition pushing to name Bonnie Springs a historical landmark. Property rights being central to the Western ethos, a historical designation seems unlikely. But as the redevelopers of Bonnie Springs Ranch are both native Las Vegans who have indicated that they wish to set aside 10 of the ranch’s 64 acres available for public use, there is some room for a win-win. I hope the petition at least telegraphs to the developers that they’re stepping into the heart and soul of many fellow Las Vegans, and some preservation of the existing ranch would be welcome. Your neighbors would appreciate it. ✦

RIGHT IN THE HEAD

Lou Ruvo Center expands work on athletes’ brain health BY

Heidi Kyser

ost Southern Nevadans k now that the loca l Cleveland Clinic satellite, the Lou Ruvo Center for Brain Health, works with professional fighters to study the link between concussion and diseases such as chronic traumatic encephalopathy, Parkinson’s, and ALS. But even the most aware reader may not have followed specific developments that have broadened this work in the years since the Retired Professional Athletes Clinic opened — or the latest multisport collaboration, which

could put Las Vegas on the map nationally. “We have a chance to take a leadership role in this, and Las Vegas hasn’t been known for healthcare research,” says Charles Bernick, the clinic’s director, “so it’s an exciting opportunity.” Here’s an explainer. L AY I N G T H E G R O U N DWO R K THE RUVO CENTER started its Professional Fighters Brain Health study in 2011 to track the brain function of active and retired boxers and mixed-martial arts fighters. Since then, 815 fighters have enrolled in the study. Its goal is to measure the cumulative neurological effects of repeated head injury, so that doctors can identify and predict these effects early on. The center also participates in a National Institutes of Health study of retired professional football players and runs the Professional Athletes Clinic to care for people from all contact sports who are experiencing declines in memory and brain function. MARCH 2019

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| 11

E X PA N D I N G T H E S C O P E EARLY ON, THE Professional Fighters Brain Health Study focused, as the name suggests, on fighters, active and retired. Major findings up to now include a relationship between the number of fights a person has been in and a shrinkage in certain brain areas. The clinic recently added professional rodeo riders to the study. “It’s a group that’s not as visible to most people, but by definition are being thrown off (of their steeds) and hitting the ground,” Bernick says. In early February, his team submitted a paper on its longitudinal MRI findings for publication in an academic journal. (A longitudinal study focuses on the same factors or variables over time.)

BREAKING NEW GROUND IN EARLY 2018, the clinic started the Pro-

Dealer’s Choice FIVE | GAMBLING

Here’s why Nevada should worry about the Justice Department’s recent opinion about internet gambling BY Chris Sieroty

nternet gambling is a scourge and a plague, a magnet for crime and corruption. Or it’s a blessing and an economic boon — and a digital-era inevitability that we should tax and regulate. Or maybe online gambling is mere fiscal snake oil, a sham panacea that causes more social and economic woes than it solves. In this ongoing debate, some voices are louder than others. And a recent legal opinion from the U.S. Department of Justice has everyone listening. Its reinterpretation of the 1961 Wire Act says the law forbids interstate, or cross-border, transmissions of all forms of gambling

NAMES FOR PROPOSED RURAL NEVADA STATE A Pahrump-based movement wants to break away from Las Vegas and Reno. But what to call it? #Rednexit Largehattan Tinytaxbaselandia (“Miles of Picturesquely Crumbling Infrastructure!”) Cowsnia and Sheepzegovina St. Hof Democratic Republic of Smith & Wesson United Hoedown Emirates Tonopah & Friends Hillbillicon Valley Freedomland of Extra Freedom Yahoos.com Utah

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MARCH 2019

G A M B L I N G I L LU S T R AT I O N : K R I S T I N A C O L L A N T E S

fessional Sports Brain Health Coalition. “Currently each sport takes care of their own, but there are common issues, and one is brain health and concussion,” Bernick says. The goal is to bring together diverse professional organizations to collaborate on brain health and the effects of head trauma across a range of sports. Ten organizations are involved: UFC, Professional Bull Riders, Oakland Raiders, Vegas Golden Knights, Top Rank (boxing), NFL Alumni, UNLV, Cirque du Soleil, South Point Hotel & Casino, and United Way. The coalition’s work will be divided into three areas: education, research, and advocacy. Past meetings have dealt with conception and organization. The actual work is set to begin at a meeting this month. “This is a big deal in the sense that there’s no other city doing this with multiple sports teams,” Bernick says. “And it’s in Las Vegas, where you can make that happen.” ✦

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online. “Having been asked to reconsider, we now conclude that the statutory prohibitions are not uniformly limited to gambling on sports events or contests,” a DOJ attorney wrote. Translation: Any kind of internet gambling violates the Wire Act. This legal opinion threatens to derail a modest but burgeoning online wagering industry — and is already causing a lot of head-scratching in Nevada, as gaming experts, lobbyists, and regulators try to figure out what the legal opinion means for the state. “The Wire Act was intended to stop Mob-related sports betting, and quite simply, the best way to cut that off in the 1960s was by severing the ability to place wagers by phone. That made sense at the time,” says A.G. Burnett, a former chairman of the Nevada Gaming Control Board and now a gaming lawyer with McDonald Carano in Reno. But the new interpretation that says the Wire Act prohibits all forms of online gambling? “It is an overreach, because it is swatting a fly with an H-bomb.” But perhaps a surprise bombshell was the point. The opinion is dated Nov, 2, 2018, but was released on Jan. 14, while the federal government was in a shutdown, and came from the DOJ press office, most of whose staff were furloughed. Also interesting is the fact that this Justice Department advisory opinion had long been lobbied for by Sheldon Adelson, chairman and CEO of Las Vegas Sands Corp., GOP megadonor, and vigorous opponent of online gambling. What does this mean for Nevada, not to mention the three other states where online gambling and poker are currently legal and available? “This new opinion would impact the ability to compact between legal jurisdictions on any form or gambling, Therefore, shared liquidity pools are at risk with this ruling,” says Jennifer Roberts, associate director of the International Center for Gambling Regulation at UNLV. And — surprise — for online poker, Nevada, Delaware, and New Jersey share player liquidity across state lines. For example, a Nevada gambler can legally play on New Jersey’s online poker platform. For Roberts, the biggest concern with the opinion is the uncertainty it creates with intrastate activity. In the digital era, information doesn’t care about state or country borders. Even if you’re in Las Vegas and playing on a Nevada gambling

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Nevada casinos aren’t likely to take any chances. Advocacy group Coalition to Stop Internet Gambling supports the opinion, characterizing the previous version as “problematic legally as it was morally.” The group has also been supported by Adelson. This, too, raises the question of whether this DOJ opinion isn’t so much a piece of cogent jurisprudence as the product of successful lobbying. “Identifying the motivation for the opinion is difficult and should be the subject of congressional inquiry,” says Anthony Cabot, distinguished fellow in gaming law at the UNLV William S. Boyd School of Law. “No apparent legitimate reason for the reversal exists, but other factors need to be explored.”

website, some of your online transactions will cross the state line at some point. “It is unclear whether they will take the position that any transmission of betting information or transactions that are both made and accepted in a state where it is legal that may be briefly routed outside will be treated as a violation of the Wire Act,” Roberts says. “This would mean that any intrastate activity — sports betting, poker, lottery, or casino gambling — could constitute a federal criminal violation.” Although the opinion is advisory rather than law or regulation, Roberts cautions that it remains in the Justice Department’s power to enforce their interpretation. And with even the faint prospect of federal intervention or sanction by state gaming regulators,

Book Story SEVEN | M E M O R Y L A N E

As the Writer’s Block prepares to open later this month, we look back at an earlier chapter of the valley’s indie book-seller story BY

Brian Weiss

anny and Robin Greenspun each had an idea about the kind of store they wanted to hang out in. Robin wanted an art gallery that also served cappuccino and light fare. Danny wanted a really cool bookstore. They settled for both, then hired me. Opening in 1988, the Culture Dog Bookstore & Moira James Gallery was ahead of its time. Located in a new strip mall in Green Valley, the bookstore occupied most of the downstairs, while the gallery was upstairs. Handmade wooden shelves filled two large open rooms, and the entire space was well-illuminated both by natural sunlight and well-designed fixtures. To simply refer to it as an independent bookstore would be an injustice. It was an experience — particularly in a valley otherwise served by uninspiring chain bookstores. Danny kept Culture Dog stocked with the best in current literature and classic fiction. Robin’s passions were also reflected, and the arts and cooking sections were unparalleled. Patrons could while away the day sipping beverages and reading in the many corners and nooks, while children were treated to an entire treehouse area devoted to early readers. As an employee, I took pride in my ability to hold most of the store’s inventory in my head (from having personally moved every damn book in the store at some point). I delighted in asking “important people” — local celebrities — what they read, and then making recommendations. Alas, Culture Dog became short-lived when the Review-Journal and the Sun entered into a joint operating agreement in 1989, and Danny was needed to attend to this transition at the media company his father founded. Without

D E S E R T C O M P A N I O N .V E G A S

Factors such as, whether justified or not, some brick-and-mortar casinos see internet gaming as a threat to their multibillion-dollar investments. “If, as The Wall Street Journal has speculated, the forces behind this effort are private competitive concerns close to the Trump administration, it would be an affront to the Constitutional principles upon which our government was founded,” Cabot says. The Justice Department established a 90-day cooling-off period before the new opinion is enforced by federal prosecutors. It’s unclear how this new decision will be implemented when the cooling-off period expires in early April. But for now, the bold new world of internet gambling is stuck on a spinning pinwheel. ✦

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his attention, Robin closed the store in 1990. It really wasn’t about the money (though Danny was known to admit that he couldn’t match the discounts at the big-box store down the street). A brief moment of place in a constantly shifting town, Culture Dog is definitely a beloved addition to any conversation about book-selling in Las Vegas. Likewise, the Reading Room at Mandalay Bay. I worked there, too. Tucked away in a corner next to some escalators, it was the brainchild of Glenn Schaeffer, a Mandalay executive who wanted to add real culture to the usual Strip retail fare. The store was small but excellent. The contemporary fiction section had something for everyone. The manager let employees make suggestions, and each of us had our specialties. Mine was gaming and Nevada history; I was especially proud of my one little bookshelf dedicated to poker. Local and national book-signings were constant. When Schaeffer left the company, the store fell prey to the bean counters. Since 2009, the space that held the only independent bookseller on the Strip has been a frozen yogurt shop. Ah, progress. ✦

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Editor’s note: The new Writer’s Block, now located in The Lucy complex at Bonneville Avenue and Sixth Street, opens its events space early this month, with the bookstore to follow a few weeks later. MARCH 2019

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AIMING FOR SAFETY

It’s been a year since the Parkland shooting raised awareness about school safety nationwide, including in Nevada. What’s happened since then?

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Heidi Kyser

February 21, 2018 The Nevada State Education Association says it supports sensible gun laws and opposes arming teachers. March 1, 2018 In separate incidents, two 17-year-old students are arrested for having guns at Palo Verde and Desert Rose high schools. March 19, 2018 Nevada Gov. Brian Sandoval creates a state school safety task force. February 24, 2018 National March for Our Lives demonstration attracts thousands of local students to a rally in front of Las Vegas City Hall. April 20, 2018 National school walkout demonstration marking the anniversary of the Columbine, Colorado, school shooting June 3, 2018 MSD graduation ceremony, featuring emotional diploma presentations and speeches, and “MSDStrong” sashes August 6, 2018 CCSD launches the SafeVoice app for students to anonymously report safety threats.

January 30, 2019 An intoxicated 17-year-old male is arrested near Valley High School with loaded MAC-10 pistol, complete with silencer. February 4, 2019 Now through June, the Legislature will consider a raft of school-safety bills based on the state task force’s recommendations. February 20, 2019 A student is arrested near Cheyenne High School after police find a loaded 9mm handgun in his backpack.

January 4, 2019 School district advisory committee makes 10 recommendations to the school board. They cover, among other things, crisis response, firearms reporting, police staffing, security assessments, security cameras, and student IDs.

January, 2019 As of this month, CCSD police have confiscated 14 guns on school campuses in the 2018-19 school year.

November 19, 2018 The Nevada Statewide School Safety Task Force sends Sandoval its final report, which includes six broad recommendations covering an omnibus revision to the statute governing school safety; investment in school mental-health services; an increase in school police; funding for safe learning environments; legislation and funding for prevention programs; and regulatory changes to correct the disproportionate disciplining of certain students.

October 19, 2018 CCSD says it will begin random searches for weapons.

October 9, 2018 In what was reported to be the 10th gun confiscation at a school since July 1, district police arrested a 15-year-old for bringing a handgun to Sunrise Mountain High School. It was unloaded, though he reportedly had ammo with him.

October 2, 2018 The Nevada Department of Education announces $1 million grant from the Department of Justice for training staff and students in school safety.

September 19, 2018 CCSD police take a 9-year-old student into custody for bringing a gun to Helen Marie Smith Elementary School.

September 12, 2018 CCSD says it’s creating its own school safety advisory committee to make recommendations to the school board.

September 11, 2018 18-year-old Dalvin Brown is shot to death at Canyon Springs High School. 16-year-old Kayin French is later arrested and charged with murder with a deadly weapon.

August 23, 2018 President Trump’s Federal Commission on School Safety tours the Miley Achievement Center K-12 school in Las Vegas to see its heightened safety measures.

August 13 - September 12, 2018 Five students in as many weeks are arrested for having guns at Green Valley, Centennial, Sierra Vista, Mojave, and Desert Rose high schools.

February 17, 2018 Never Again MSD, a gun-control PAC started by student survivors, organizes the first of many protests.

February 14, 2018 A gunman kills 17 students and staff members at Marjory Stoneman Douglas (MSD) High School in Parkland, Florida.

MARCH 8, 2019

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Gold Standards NINE | LOCAL FLAVOR

The latest buzz on the sweet world of honey in the desert BY

Sonja Swanson

Oh, honey. This golden treat is a part of culinary traditions all over the world, and revered for both its sweetness and, some say, medicinal qualities. The most commonly kept bee for honey production today is Apis mellifera, the European honeybee, which was brought to North America by settlers in the 1600s. But there are thousands of other bee species that produce honey in the wild that have interacted with humans for thousands, if not millions, of years. And when it comes to that human-bee partnership, the Las Vegas Valley is a veritable hive of activity.

D E S E R T C O M P A N I O N .V E G A S

SQUEEZE, SPREAD, AND SLICE LOCALLY LUCKILY FOR US, there are several local producers of honey whose bees live in and around Las Vegas.

FLAVOR BUZZ

C & D HONEY: Local raw honey

producers from Pahrump who sell wildflower honey and bee products, including royal jelly, propolis (a resinous compound bees produce), and beeswax lip balms and hand lotions at farmers markets around the Valley. (c-and-dhoneyco.com) HAMMONS HONEY: Produced

from bees in Centennial Hills, Hammons Honey sells a handful of honey varietals, as well as honeycomb from the Gardens Park farmers market, Bruce Trent Park farmers market, and the Huckleberry Park farmers market.

THE LAS VEGAS FARM: The bees here don’t have to travel very far to get their pollen at the farm, where vegetables abound and fruit orchards bloom across the street. (thelasvegasfarm.com) PAHRUMP HONEY COMPANY:

Pahrump Honey’s hives are located in Pahrump near the state line, where their bees travel the Great Basin Desert, as well as local alfalfa fields and orchards. (pahrumphoney.com) TOM’S BEES: Tom primarily

H O N E Y, B E E S : S H U T T E R S T O C K

builds bee boxes, but also sells raw honey from his local Las Vegas hives while supplies last. (tomsbeehives.com)

BLUE LIZARD FARMS: Rodney Mehring, a veteran beekeeper who has taught beekeeping at the University of Nevada Cooperative Extension, has a farm in Caliente where he keeps honeybees. You can find his honey, when available, at PublicUs, or contact them through the Blue Lizard Farm Facebook page.

MANY OF US

BEE A FRIEND

WE ALL KNOW and like the

industrious honeybee, but there are, in fact, more than 4,000 species of bees native to North America. All of these bees play a vital role in pollinating the crops we harvest and consume: 90 percent of flowering plants and 30 percent of crops depend on pollinators like bees to propagate — about $15 billion worth of crops depend on bees to pollinate them every year. But in recent years, bee populations have been facing a crisis called Colony Collapse Disorder, in which worker bees abandon the queen, resulting in the death of the hive. The causes are complex, but the loss of food sources, exposure to pesticides, and transmission of mites are among them. Climate change, too, plays a role: Irregular flowering seasons and extreme temperatures contribute to hive loss. As many as 30 percent of hives are lost over winter across North America (the fate of wild bees is much harder to measure). Bees, says UNLV professor of anthropology Alyssa Crittenden, are the canary in the coal mine for climate change. So the next time you see a bee hive, hold off before spraying the Raid. “If you don’t bother them, they don’t bother you,” says Tom Lioubas, owner of Tom’s Beehives. The exception, he notes, are Africanized bees, which will chase you for three blocks. The Clark County government website advises keeping family and pets away from the hive, and calling a professional bee removal service. Keep your eyes, nose and mouth covered (the bees aim for those areas), and avoid flailing, which just enrages the bees. Both Lioubas and Josh Hammons do professional bee removals. And if they’re honeybees, says Hammons, all the better: “I’ll give ’em a home and a job!”

grew up with the classic honeybear bottle on the shelf, perfect for sneaking into spoonfuls (come to think of it, Mom probably knew). But supermarket honey brands tend to lack one key ingredient that many consider essential to honey, especially for combatting allergies: pollen. On the other hand, pasteurized, ultra-filtered honey removes the natural yeasts and tends to have a longer shelf life. If the pollens are what you’re after, look for “raw and unfiltered” honey, which tends to crystallize more, and has more of the beeswax, pollen, and nutrients. The flavors you’ll get in your honey will vary depending on several factors: what the bees are eating, the weather, the season. Some honey connoisseurs even talk about the “terroir” of honey. Honey is sold in a variety of forms: Liquid, crystalized (spreadable),

MARCH 2019

and honeycomb (perfect for pairing with cheese). Among the local honeys available in Las Vegas, keep an eye out for these flavors: DESERT WILDFLOWER The

most common “flavor” to find, these bees feed on a mix of desert blooms, lending floral notes to an amber, complex profile. Because this a broad, umbrella term, flavors can vary from producer to producer. Often considered a “bread-andbutter” honey by producers, this common varietal is a bright, sweet honey with mild flavors and an easy versatility.

CLOVER

ALFALFA This

varietal tends to be less sweet, with a mild acidity and beeswax aromas.

RUSSIAN OLIVE:

Russian olive is an invasive species in Las Vegas, but the honey it produces is a delicious, tangy varietal with raspberry notes.

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THE HONEYHUMAN

HIVE MIND

If you’re ready to take your honey hobby to the next level, you might consider operating some beehives yourself. Tom Lioubas of Tom’s Beehives recommends getting them started here in Las Vegas in April, to coincide with the spring blooms. Lioubas comes from a line of beekeepers on the Greek island of Corfu. “My grandpa used to keep them, and my father, and, as a little boy, I used to follow them,” he explains. After embarking on a career in carpentry, then moving to Las Vegas in 1971, he eventually circled back to building beehives in his retirement. Before you buy a bee box, you’ll need to check your local ordinances regarding the number of hives you can keep on the space you have. Talk to your neighbors to make sure none of them have bee allergies, and do your research. How much are you ready to invest? Does anyone spray pesticides nearby? Is there a source of water (that isn’t your neighbor’s pool)? If you take care of your bees, says Tom, you should have four to five pounds of honey by September — just make sure to leave enough for the bees to eat over winter.

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CONNECTION is quite possibly as old as humanity itself. UNLV professor of anthropology Alyssa Crittenden studies the role of honey in human evolution, or more broadly, “the dietary changes that mapped on to neurological changes.” “The brain burns all sorts of energy, so it’s metabolically expensive,” Crittenden explains. “And honey, it was argued back in the ’70s, was the most energydense food found in nature.” To understand how honey fueled the development of the human brain — and our existence today — Crittenden worked with the Hadza, a hunter-gatherer population in Tanzania

who live in a landscape similar to that of human ancestors (it stands to reason that their foraging patterns would have commonalities). “For every foraging population, we know that they were consuming some kind of honey of some kind of bee,” she says. For further evidence, Crittenden points to early rock art that depicts humans targeting beehives, as well as to the behavior of great apes, our closest primate relatives, who also target honey. And with new research being done in the examination of ancient dental plaque, she believes we’re going to find a “treasure trove” of information into early human diets, including just how much honey they ate. “There’s a continuum from our first interaction with bee species 2.8 million years ago to now,” she says.

L I O U B A S : C H R I S T O P H E R S M I T H ; C R I T T E N D E N : C O U R T E S Y U N LV M E D I A C E N T E R

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PHOTOS BY JERRY METELLUS

A LL OUT FOOD, CULTURE, STYLE, AND OTHER PULSE-OF-THE-CITY STUFF

! e e e Wee RECRE

AT I O N

to the hts turn e g u o h t ay abov our a wire w for you and if y , g g n in lo r a p Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s s areening s some ziplines fun of c s s le as ha k c re Las Veg , ll e w , ground adrid BY

ILLUSTRATION

Chris Morris

ie M Stephan

MARCH 2019

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s I hang in my harness looking down at the LINQ Promenade, I remember I’m scared of heights. I can faintly see Sprinkles Cupcakes, its large neon sign looking more like a dimly lit candle from this altitude. I try to focus on the view and not on the godawful wedgie this harness is giving me. Just as my heart rate flutters back toward normal, the instructor gives us the countdown. Instantly I’m flying down the Promenade, all the lights and people blurring into one fluorescent lump. While I’m “supermanning” across the Promenade, more than a thousand feet in the air, I remember why ziplining is such a phenomenon, and why I agreed to do this again in the first place. The speed of the zipline, the rush of the wind, makes you feel unbelievably free, and your childhood dream of being able to fly finally comes true. Ziplining gives riders an epic, adrenaline-filled rush that’ll make even the fiercest acrophobic want to ride again. This trend may have begun in the jungles of South America, but it’s made its way to the even more exotic landscape that is Las Vegas. F LY L I N Q Z I P L I N E

FOR THE BEGINNER Looking down from the 12th story atop the LINQ’s Vortex, you see locals and tourists alike stumbling around with Fat Tuesdays, some waiting in line to see their favorite indie band play at Brooklyn Bowl. After strapping in, you’re shot 1,080 feet across the Promenade while steadily dropping 60 feet at 35 mph. Fly LINQ is the only zipline located on the Strip, but the intimacy of the Promenade gives it more of a “locals night out” vibe. 3545 Las Vegas Blvd. S., $30-$45, caesars. com/linq/fly-linq

VO O D O O Z I P L I N E FOR THE ROLLER-COASTER ENTHUSIAST Taking off from the north end of the Voodoo Lounge & Steakhouse, located atop the Rio’s 50-story Masquerade Tower, Voodoo Zipline cascades riders across 800 feet at 33 mph to the

21-story Ipanema tower. It’s the only zipline in town that makes all riders sign a waiver, probably because of its intense 500-foot drop. Unlike other local ziplines, Voodoo straps riders into a tandem so you can force your boo to share this experience with you. Bonus: All riders over 21 get complimentary

GET OUT! | HIKING

La Madre Spring

Spring in the Mojave Desert is a time of ephemeral beauty, where wildflowers, watercourses, and new life seem to disappear as quickly as they arrive. Make the most of the season with a hike to La Madre Spring at Red Rock Canyon. The hike climbs through three distinct life zones, passing flowering and fruiting plants like cliffrose, sagebrush, manzanita, Indian ricegrass, ashy silktassel, and countless others, ending at a small pool, itself the terminus of a flowing stream that comes complete with waterfalls. Get it before it’s hot! Alan Gegax

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Looking to get out more this spring? Visit desertcompanion. vegas for all our hiking features, from great hikes in your own backyard to hikes tailored to different skill sets and interests.

D E S E R T C O M P A N I O N .V E G A S

ZIP-A-DEE-DOO DAAAAAAH! Whether you prefer desert splendor or Strip views, there’s a zipline for that. Left, Flightlinez at Bootleg Canyon; above, the Fly LINQ Zipline.

access to the Voodoo Nightclub and Lounge. 3700 W. Flamingo Road, $25, voodoozipline.com S LOTZ I L L A FOR THE INTOXICATED

The smell of Downtown fills the air as you fly 40 mph above Fremont Street. The drunk tourists below (many trying to throw beer at you) become a blur during your straight-shot, 1,750foot journey. The wind in your face calms your stomach as you regret downing that last Captain and Coke. Get the real Vegas experience, complete with an 11-story slot machine (the largest in the world), 35-foot showgirls (named Jennifer and Porsha), and have we mentioned the drunk tourists? 425 Fremont St. #160, $25-$49, vegasexperience.com/slotzilla-zip-line

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FLIGHTLINEZ BOOTLEG C A N YO N Z I P L I N E FOR THE OUTDOOR ADVENTURER You’re more likely to find a bighorn sheep than a drunk tourist at this Boulder City zipline. It’s spread across 1.4 miles and four ziplines; riders fly over Bootleg Canyon at speeds reaching 60 mph. Starting 3,800 feet above sea level, its 400-foot drops and 17 percent grades will be sure to impress even the most experienced thrillseekers. Pro tip: Take a sunset ride and see the vibrant desert landscape like you never have before. 1644 Boulder City Parkway, $99-$159, flightlinezbootleg.com ✦ MARCH 2019

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“ DINING

That’s Eatertainment Spectacles to savor are on the menu at these new Strip restaurants BY

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Lissa Townsend Rodgers

MARCH 2019

Dinner and a show” has been a Las Vegas tradition since Sophie Tucker played the El Rancho. But it can mean so much more, from extravagant decor to tableside preparations to cabaret performances. All of which can be seen (and selfie’d) in the wave of new restaurants, where what’s going on in the room is as much an attraction as what’s going on your plate. It’s not a new idea. But it is one that’s newly attuned to the hashtag moment, when posting a selfie on Instagram is just as important as being there. And if there’s one thing people like to photograph more than their new haircut, it’s the entrée the server just put on the table. As nightlife tilts away from mega-sized nightclubs with their mega-priced bottle service (thank god!) and the celebrity chef trend tapers off, the glamorous, vibe-heavy restaurant is a likely option to take its place. An import from New York/Los Angeles, Catch, inside Aria, has an “@ us on Instagram” vibe that flows from the flower-filled tunnel that leads you into the restaurant: Prepare to stop so as not to ruin someone’s photo op. The dining room has vaulted ceilings and touches of greenery — it feels a little like a chic Dispensary Lounge — and is full of tourist couples and conventioneer quartets, as well as a tableful of young women flipping their straightened hair and fluttering their eyelash extensions as they snap solo and duo selfies. The waiters will happily

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snap a group photo or pause the mini-blowtorch until you’ve got your iPhone poised to capture the moment. Catch’s cocktails are designed to intrigue both the eye and the palate, though not necessarily both at once. The Ziggy Stardust is pretty, with its lightning bolt of bitters stenciled on a froth of egg whites, but not that exciting to taste; the tequila-matcha combo of the Detox Retox sounds gimmicky but, with the addition of mint and cucumber, its makes for an earthy yet exotic drink. As the name suggests, the restaurant leans toward seafood in a variety of formats: sushi rolls, shellfish towers, the grilled and the sautéed. The truffle sashimi is a standout, smooth and rich like silk velvet, but the tuna carpaccio suffers from unnecessary yuzu. The sushi specialties have some interesting twists, like the spicy-tuna/sweet pear Hellfire Roll or the Catch Roll, which gets a quick flambé finish at the table. Yes, they apply heat to sushi, but the brief flicker of blue flame actually gives a pleasing hint of caramelization to the miso honey on a salmon roll. Desserts are intricate creations, such as the Hit Me Cake, which combines look, flavor, and action in a magical tower of a confection. Over layers of ice cream, devil’s SELFIE ESTEEM Left and above, Catch in the Aria is part of a new wave of restaurants whose eyepopping decor is geared for the Instagram generation.

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The row of frozen drink machines food cake, brownie, and chocolate, REFINED PALETTE behind the bar does indeed turn out you pour warm caramel over a KlonRoy Choi’s boozy slushies like the Jameson & dike Bar-like oblong of chocolate on colorful Best Friend in Ginger or a soju-watermelon-hibistop. Then you whack it with your Park MGM cus concoction — and, yes, you can fork, which allows the dulce de leche is part bar, get them in a jumbo-size souvenir ice cream inside to melt all over the part souvenir shop, and glass. You can buy a beer koozie lower layers. It’s the kind of dessert part bodega. or T-shirt, or you can glide into that makes you forget your manners, the dining room through a portal as you pull the plate out of your covered with those plastic flaps tablemate’s reach and blissfully huff that are usually found on loading docks and the rest of it down yourself. Try to make walk-in freezers. Inside, cheerful murals look sure you’ve wiped all the chocolate off of down on waiters in tracksuits and bussers your face before your exit pic by the giant in Kangol hats while old-school hip-hop rose petal butterfly. (In the Aria, aria.com) plays in the background. ❉ ❉ ❉ ❉ ❉ The menu is a mix of Korean and Mexican flavors, an homage to the restaurant’s Los ROY CHOI’S BEST FRIEND has enough atmoAngeles origin. Every meal opens with warm, sphere to render a small planet habitable salted Hawaiian rolls, and from there you — especially if the intended population can choose an assortment of condiments enjoys Vans and the Wu-Tang Clan. The (banchan), small plates, bowls, pots, and front is part bar and part souvenir shop for-the-table platters. The Slippery Shrimp with a bodega backdrop: Bottles of Jarritos is a tasty mix of creamy chili mayo, crispy soda and boxes of saltines line walls hung rock shrimp, and crunchy walnuts, while the with pictures of Tupac Shakur, Anthony sesame-dotted BBQ Spicy Pork is another Bourdain and this year’s K-Pop girl group.

“clean your plate” option. The multilayered flavors and textures of the Tamarind Black Cod Hot Pot is also solid. Choi made his fusion bones on his Kogi Short Rib Tacos, and they are a delightful mix of Korean barbecue sweetness and East L.A. chili sharpness, but the mild-unto-bland carnitas tacos are a disappointment, especially in a town with so many taco options. (In Park MGM, parkmgm.com) The more-than-food experience isn’t just limited to high-ticket Strip dining. Drag show diner Hamburger Mary’s had an outpost here a decade ago, and has returned to Vegas to cash in on the post-RuPaul’s Drag Race cultural moment — and, yes, you’ll find cars with Jesus fish in the parking lot alongside those with rainbow flag decals. The food is actually quite good: The burgers are juicy, and the caramel fried chicken salad has a sort of kettle-corn taste that is addictive. But the real attraction, of course, is the drag show. If your Twitter feed needs a snap of a drag queen performing the sacred ritual that is a Madonna lip-sync, here it is. And the themes keep coming: On the horizon, the minds behind Golden Tiki and Evel Pie are at work on a heavy metal pizza joint in the Arts District that will no doubt be art-directed within an inch of its life. Las Vegas may have drifted away from the themed resorts that made its name, but we’ll always have an appetite for a splashy backdrop. ✦

EAT THIS NOW: THE GOURMANDISE PATISSERIE MANON

At Patisserie Manon, there’s no shame in pressing your nose against the glass in wonder at all the decadent desserts. While it’s tempting to order one of each, s’il vous plait, the clear champion is Manon’s gourmandise. The gourmandise — loosely translated as a greed or love of sweets — certainly lives up to its name. An airy baguette is sliced, layered with creamy custard, topped generously with whipped cream and berries, and properly polished with a dusting of powdered sugar. While grand enough to share, greed may get the best of you, so take another to go. (8751 W. Charleston Blvd. #110, 702-586-2666 patisseriemanon.com) Katie Cannata

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D E S E R T C O M P A N I O N .V E G A S

Street Foodie

THE WORLD IN A BLOCK Globetrotting flavors spice up Flamingo Road near Decatur Boulevard PHOTOS & STORY BY

Brent Holmes

BANGKOK MARKET (1) This gem of a store, located just outside of Chinatown proper, is full of pleasant surprises. Along with all the dry goods, the refrigerator cases feature dishes like steamed fish curry, grilled barbecue pork, and Thai deserts. Street Foodie likes to grab a hot meal at the cafeteria — like the fried mussel pancake. The fresh, eggy batter marries perfectly with the little mollusks, saturating the dish with flavor. It tastes like crispy ocean. Grab a palm soda to sweeten things up a bit. 4825 W, Flamingo Road, 702-873-0396

OODLE NOODLE (2)

GOURMANDISE: CHRISTOPHER SMITH; IBERICO: ANTHONY MAIR

This noodle house serves chewy, chubby, homemade udon in styles ranging from traditional to anything but. This joint brings all the Japanese flavors, plus some.

For instance, the lasagna udon was a curiosity I couldn’t pass up. Good thing, too. It’s full of the familiar Italian flavors but with a completely different pasta; nice twist. Go more traditional with udon on ice, and get a side of tempura-fried avocado to maximize the richness. Itadakimasu — “let’s eat” — indeed. 4449 W. Flamingo Road, 702-538-9556

LUCY ETHIOPIAN RESTAURANT (3) The blessing and curse of Ethiopian food is the bread injera. A sourdough sponge that creates the base of the cuisine, serving as both utensil and filler, can get overwhelming. But at Lucy, this is offset by some of the most powerful flavors known to Street Foodie: meats and vegetables spiced somewhere between Indian food and heaven. Try the mixed veggie plate, a wonderful gift to carnivores and vegans alike; you won’t miss the meat. But if you do, the lamb tibs are a palate-singeing experience you won’t soon forget. 4850 W. Flamingo Road, 702-473-5999

DA LAT RESTAURANT (4) Street Foodie doesn’t use double exclamation points often, but: This place is amazing!! Strong, elegant Vietnamese flavors that I was unaccustomed to. I tried the caramel catfish, which comes with a sour fish soup. The dance that’s done here goes well beyond your basic sweet/ sour/savory interaction to a place Street Foodie had never completely gone before. You should follow. 4553 W. Flamingo Road, 702-871-5285

ou might recall the episode of The Simpsons where Lisa explains to Homer that ham, bacon, and pork chops all come from the same creature. “Right, Lisa — some wonderful, magical animal.” The words of a donut-huffing vulgarian may not seem to suit the epicurean environs of Jaleo in The Cosmopolitan, but there is no other way to describe the legendary Ibérico Bellota pig, which roam the oak-dotted fields of Spain and Portugal, getting fat on acorns. The Ibérico is less served than celebrated with six different cuts on the menu, each with its own flavor and texture. The carrilleras are braised cheeks that are almost like short ribs, with a falling-apart texture and rich flavor that combines sweetness and earthiness — the latter heightened by the mushDINING rooms it’s served with. On the other end, the Lomo is a loin cut that is seared and served with an apple-mustard sauce, two flavors that are traditionally paired with pork but here with a fresh, rustic finish that’s miles beyond the blend of applesauce and hot-dog topping your mom used. More steak-like is the Solomillo, a grilled tenderloin, while the Secreto is so-called because it was the piece that butchers used to squirrel (or pig, in this case) away for themselves. A shoulder cut, it has a slightly nutty flavor with streaks of fat that practically melt on your tongue. There is the spicy Presa, and the thin-yet-marbled Pluma cut is serviced with escalivada, a sort of vegetable compote with a roasted, slightly vinegary taste that cuts through the richness of the meat. Jaleo is the only place in the country where you can sample all six cuts of the black-footed porcine wonder. Head Chef Luis Montesinos says that he “became obsessed with the legendary jamón five years ago after enjoying lunch at Fermín, one of the most celebrated producers of Jamón Ibérico de Bellota” and has long wanted to “share the unique taste of Salamanca” at Jaleo. While the restaurant’s paella pit may draw attention with its dancing flames and clattering pans, the long marble counter swiftly and serenely plating an array of meats and cheeses is at Jaleo’s center — and never more so than when bringing the magic of the Ibérico to the table. Lissa Townsend Rodgers

WONDERFUL, MAGICAL IBERICO PORK

In The Cosmopolitan, cosmopolitan.com MARCH 2019

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VISUAL ART

Old Meets New Meets Wow! A two-decade retrospective of Sush Machida’s artwork vividly illustrates the evolving ways he has remixed the traditional and the modern

SU S H M AC H I DA : CO U RT E SY SU S H M AC H I DA

of dots and lines that combat fixity with movement. The eyes rove, as if they were watching surf lap the shore. Post-Diaspora, water and clouds swamp Sush’s large-format painted panels as background increasingly becomes foreground, and fish and mountain subjects recede. Hardedged lines, masked and sprayed in saturated colors, render the fluid dynamics of a sloshing ocean or billowing clouds in nervy contours rippling through space and dramatizing imaginary interference patterns. Paintings in this series are so vibrant it is as if the extrapolated geometry of wind and current were instantaneously bound in a miracle of wired neon. And yet, the patterns won’t stay put — cloud becomes wave becomes sand becomes tree. The oneness of phenomena has a venerable history in Japan, but never has it been expressed with such chromatic verve. After 2011, Sush’s style shifts away from clean, heavily contoured compositions toward a denser, even gestural, picture plane. In a move optimizing art history bandwidth (Ukiyo-e, Cubism, Surrealism, Pop), Sush paints wooden planks on wood panels painstakingly prepared with 12 coats of matte medium, primer, and gesso so that the organic surface is obscured and artifice reigns. The painted wood grain projects a convincing aura, unnaturally natural. Lines of sea and sky are now sensuous fiber; dots are knots. To the “wooden” surface, he adds saturated color — graffiti sprays or Pollockesque dribbles and smears. In later series, he tops the artificial wood surface with wave patterns that threaten to bury the planks beneath skeins of psychedelic lines. But rather than obscuring the grain, the superimposed patterns, by allusion, extend it. Sush’s current work continues to push into new terrain, the signature patterns now seemingly spilling out of the composition, curving the corners of the panels and creating shapes. No longer confined to rectangular picture planes, the cloud-wave combo seems freer than ever, as if the artist were riding Hokusi’s boat as it shreds the crest where sea and sky are one. Sush is a long way from Medieval Edo, and then in some ways, not so far. The emotion of his art is primary, carrying it well beyond the legacy of 20th-century Pop, with its dehumanizing ethos, into a less jaded, more hopeful realm. The artifice is there, and celebrated, but so is optimism. ✦

olors so bright they ricochet into your eyes, hypnotic patterns WAVE ACTION In the painting that sear the senses: Sush Machida’s paintings catapult Pop “Moon Over Art into the metamodern realm. In Twenty Years in Vegas at Marine,” timeSahara West Library, the telltale markers of Pop Art present less Japanese atmosphere themselves — action heroes culled from TV series, packaging shed from meets modern consumer culture — but Machida’s work won’t cozy up next to Andy neon coloring. Warhol’s Campbell’s soup cans for long. There’s too much irony. Or sincerity. Or both. The visual and emotional complexity in Sush’s art is partly a by-product of his Japanese-American identity. Born in Japan and trained in Western painting, Sush discovered the visual traditions of his homeland via 19th-century French artists inspired by Japanese woodblock prints. Classic Japanese aesthetic concepts — awe at the transience of life, respect for emptiness that is never really empty, reverence for beauty in imperfection — influenced him in subtle ways. In 1992, at 18, he moved to the U.S. and spent a lot of time on a snowboard. Seven years later, Dave Hickey poached him from Utah State University for UNLV’s Art MFA program. At that point, Sush was making dense, sexualized mixed-media works, collaging nudies onto painted Japanese seascapes with heaping patterns of salacious curves (bodies, water, fish) and dots (nipples) in contrasting colors. Motifs that would later earn his renown — waves, clouds, fauna, and dots — were already in place. During the early 2000s, Sush’s images underwent pruning. Nudies yielded to stylized action figures or purified nature themes; pictorial density surrendered to negative space. Vibrant planes of color in flattened perspective gained traction, connecting Sush’s work in a cursory way to Japanese Pop artist Takashi Murakami, whose “superflat” compositions in “cute culture” colors, such as candy pink and lemon yellow, earned him international art world cred. Murakami, in reaction to post-WWII decimation, often opts for kitsch subject matter, such as simpering daisies. Growing up a decade later at the height of postmodernism, Sush’s iteration of flat and cute comments on global consumer society by juxtaposing commercial icons, such as M&Ms, alongside Edo-period landscape motifs, such as mountains and water. His radical update of traditional Japanese content often includes suggestions of street art, such as graffiti and stencils. In 2007, Hickey included Sush in the internationally acclaimed Las Vegas Diaspora show, in which he exhibited elongated painted panels pinging Japanese decorative screens. Works from this period are a bestiary of stylized beasts and flamboyant fish paired with realistic images of Chanel N°5 perfume bottles, say, or Marlboro cigarette packs, and tagged with SMG (Sush Machita Gaikotsu) “corporate” logos. The jokes — perfume disguises fishy smells, cigarette packs gauge the scale of the 03 TWENTY YEARS IN VEGAS, by Sush Machida, through April 27, catch — amuse the viewer, but the genius of 01 Sahara West Library, free, lvccld.org. Reception, March 7, 5:30p the compositions is in the intricate patterns MARCH 2019

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EDGY AND FAR OUT BUT NOT UNSAFE

THE

Hot Seat

A talk with visiting playwright Adam Szymkowicz BY SUMMER THOMAD

dam Szymkowicz knows a thing or two about playwriting. In addition to his extensive body of work — 25 plays, covering topics from love to arson to organized clown crime — he has interviewed more 1,000 playwrights on his blog (adamszymkowicz.com). His plays, including Pretty Theft, Rare Birds, and Clown Bar, have been performed across the globe. On March 14-15, he’ll be in Las Vegas for a series of events with the Dramatists Guild Foundation Traveling Master’s program. What will you be doing here? I’m doing some guest teaching, and we’re doing a reading of Clown Bar 2 that Majestic Rep commissioned. Have you been to Vegas before? Twice. Once for a reading of Mercy. The other time was a group vacation after working on a TV show. I saw Jersey Boys and walked around the Strip a lot. I really love the insane architecture and miniature landmarks from other cities. Which of your plays do you think would resonate most with a Las Vegas

audience? Clown Bar has done well here. Maybe because it’s edgy and far out but still not unsafe. You’ve written a lot of plays — what’s your secret for being productive yet maintaining quality? I’ve been doing it a long time, and I don’t like it when I’m not writing, so I try to always be writing — which, of course, I can’t do. But when I can, I’m happiest. Are you always in the midst of writing something? I wish it were that way, but usually there is a pause between finishing one thing and starting another. But I’m always thinking about a lot of things I want to write and taking notes. Your plays tend to deal with dramatic subjects, such as dating, loss, murder, mental health, etc., yet most are categorized as comedies. I naturally write humorously, for better or worse. When it’s done right, the humor lifts and supports the darker and more serious parts. The topics and characters in your plays are extremely varied — where do you draw inspiration? Most of my plays are about love.

(Classical)

MUSIC UNWOUND: DVORÁK IN AMERICA THE SMITH CENTER

“From the New World” was the subtitle of Antonin Dvorák’s famed Symphony No. 9: It was the Czech composer’s ambitious attempt to evoke the vast American experience in modern classical music. Fiercely debated upon its debut

in the late 19th century for drawing inspiration from Native and African-American sources — sources many people didn’t deign to see as truly “American” — it has undergone fluctuations in popularity and critical appraisal since. It’s experiencing an upswing now, thanks in part to the work of musicologist Joseph Horowitz, who has curated a weeklong festival devoted to the composer and his magnificent achievement. There will be talks, concerts, and other events, culminating in a performance of the work by the Las Vegas Philharmonic. See the website for full schedule. Concert: April 6, 7:30p, $30-$109, musicunwoundvegas.com

St. Patrick’s Parade in Henderson. The marching bands! The go-karting Shriners! The absence of snakes! The leprechaun jerky! March 16, 10a, Water Street (part of a three-day St. Patrick’s festival), cityofhenderson.com

(Lecture)

THE REVENGE PORN EPIDEMIC Playwright Adam Szymkowicz March 14: Q&A, workshop with Las Vegas Writer’s Lounge, 3p, at Left of Center Gallery; writing workshop,7p, PublicUs, $5 donation suggested. March 15: Public reading of Clown Bar 2, plus talkback, 10p, Majestic Repertory Theatre, free, majesticrepertory.com

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UNLV’S BARRICK MUSEUM Sexting: don’t. Easy,

right? Not so fast. Thanks to changing the mores of social media, some 50 percent of young adults have sent risqué photos of themselves to other people. (Some not-so-young, too, right, Mr. Bezos?) But who knows where those pix will end up? That’s what Asia A. Eaton, assistant professor of psychology at Florida International University, wants to talk about. March 14, 7:30p, free, unlv.edu/calendar

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STITCHES, PLEASE

(Literature)

THE PEOPLE OF LAS VEGAS, FEATURING AMANDA FORTINI

A fabric-based public art project aims to bring UNLV’s art department closer to the community

UNLV’S DOC RANDO HALL

The Beverly Rogers, Carol C. Harter Black Mountain Institute honors the spirited memory of local media maverick and philanthropist James Rogers with this “contrarian” event — a “panoply of voices” will push back against the notion that Las Vegas is not a serious city. Keynoted by an original essay written and read by BMI fellow Amanda Fortini (below). Who doesn’t love a good panoply?! March 25, 7p, free, RSVP at blackmountaininstitute.org

(Theater)

ZORA NEALE HURSTON

LLOYD GEORGE FEDERAL COURTHOUSE

Actress Juanita Westbrook adopts the persona of Zora Neale Hurston, famed author, anthropologist, and African-American folklorist, one of the brightest lights of the Harlem Renaissance. It’s a chance to learn more about a legend. March 15, noon, free, lasvegas

(Comedy)

WHO’S LIVE THE SMITH CENTER

It’s a night of improv comedy as a live version of the TV show Whose Line Is It Anyway? comes to the stage. Current cast members Ryan Stiles, Greg Proops, Jeff B. Davis, and Joel Murray cram audience suggestions into a variety of funny setups. Laughter ensues. March 30, 7:30p, $29-$79, thesmithcenter.com

Reptile Nation Campfire Talk. Reptile Nation is not just the next great band name — it’s an apt description of Red Rock Canyon’s scaly population, some 30 species deep. Learn about ’em in this lecture. March 12, 7p, amphitheater, free, redrockcanyonlv.org

WHEN IT IS completed and hung on UNLV’s Grant Hall, in early April, Amanda Browder’s huge fabric installation, “The Land of Hidden Gems,” will be a geometric design evoking the complex interplay between the natural and the urban, a dynamic she thinks is integral to the gestalt of Las Vegas. But there’s another level of symbolism at work that’ll be just as important: The act of sewing the piece together — using locally donated fabrics, in a series of public stitching events in which anyone, even you, Mr. I Don’t Know How to Sew, can participate — not so subtly literalizes one vital intent of the piece, which is to bring together UNLV’s art department and the community. “I am attempting with the art department to take forward steps to get to know different groups in the community,” Browder says by phone from Brooklyn, where she lives. She is the first “transformation fellow” engaged by new department chair Marcus Civin. “I’m the catalyst. I can’t be the one who solves that issue. But I can be the person who helps them begin those relationships through the art process. If we actually envelope the audience as part of the making process, they become owners of the piece. I want people to feel that. It’s supposed to be a celebration.” Public sewing sessions will be held through March (see full schedule on the project’s Facebook page). No sewing knowledge required; Browder will show you how. And she could use the help: She estimates the project will use about 2,000 square feet of fabric. Scott Dickensheets MARCH 2019

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34 HISTORY

‘A PRESIDENTESS AMONG US’ An adventurer, author, and savvy political strategist, Jessie Frémont is an unsung Western icon BY

Sally Denton

ohn C. Frémont was the first official explorer of Nevada, and the first white American to see such wonders as Lake Tahoe and the Great Basin. The published accounts of his extensive travels captivated a restless young nation. Among the icons of Western adventurers and pioneers, Frémont’s place is as assured as any. But while John literally put Las Vegas on the map, it was his wife Jessie who turned his expeditions into international bestselling books, making his maps available to thousands of emigrants colonizing the West. Jessie Benton Frémont was also a savvy political operative who played confidante and advisor to the most powerful men in the country; an eloquent anti-slavery activist; and a keen student of history and human nature. Why is Jessie Frémont but a footnote in history? It’s certainly not because she was discreet, reticent, or retiring. REBEL IN THE CLASSROOM

was famous as an author, political strategist, adventurer — and as Mrs. John C. Frémont — Jessie Benton was a schoolgirl in the nation’s capital. “Miss Jessie, although extremely intelligent, lacks the docility of a model student,” a letter from the Georgetown Female Seminary informed her father. “Moreover, she has the objectionable manner of seeming to take our orders and assignments under consideration, to be accepted or disregarded by some standard of her own.” The year was 1840, and U.S. Senator Thomas Hart Benton, alarmed by the number of Jessie’s suitors, had enrolled her in the elite academy three miles from swampy Washington. “I fear you will find her a Don Quixote,” Jessie’s mother had warned the very proper Danish headmistress. While the letter from the seminary was intended to compel Benton to rein in his feisty daughter, Jessie hoped it would have the opposite effect. Her father had not raised her to be a parlor creature, and she knew he would not be surprised by her independent streak — and would perhaps even be proud of it. He had wanted a son, but on May 31, 1824, the dark-haired baby girl was born. Still, he named her Jessie after his father, a scholarly Englishman and North Carolina plantation owner. From that day forward, he treated her like a prince, molding her in an image for which there was no role model. “I think I came into my father’s life like a breath of his own compelling nature,” Jessie would later reflect, “strong, resolute, but open to all tender and gracious influences.”

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J E S S I E F R É M O N T: C O U R T E S Y N E VA D A S TAT E M U S E U M

LONG BEFORE SHE

Benton recognized her as a kindred spirit — animated and mischievous, perceptive and playful, willful, and curious. He was alternately intrigued and exasperated by the child’s strong personality, and took it upon himself to oversee her rearing. As she grew, he placed a small desk next to his in their Capitol Hill home, and under his careful guidance and tutoring, Jessie was a highly responsive student. The girl’s presence in Benton’s library became a familiar sight to all who visited the most powerful senator in America, her huge brown eyes taking in everything around her. She had learned to read by the time she was four years old, and as a pre-teen, she spoke five languages, read Latin and Greek, and was well-versed in history, geography, literature, and science. While tutors conducted her formal education, Benton instituted a strict set of intellectual habits: “First, to look for every word in the dictionary, the exact meaning of which is not known to you; secondly, to search for every place on the maps which is mentioned in your studies; third, to observe the chronology of all events.” Benton took her quail hunting, introduced her to bird-watching with his friend John Audubon, and impressed upon her the importance of disciplining her mind and exercising her body. He would take her to the Capitol every morning, leaving her for several hours in the care of the congressional librarian, under whose supervision she perused Thomas Jefferson’s 6,000-volume collection of books. From her earliest years, Jessie accompanied her father to the White House, where Andrew Jackson tangled her locks with his fingers while discussing politics with Benton, one of the president’s strongest supporters in building the Democratic Party. “I was to keep still and not fidget, or show pain, even if General Jackson twisted his fingers a little too tightly in my curls; he liked my father to bring me when they had their talks, and would keep me by him, his hand on my head — forgetting me of course in the interest of discussion — so that sometimes his long, bony fingers took an unconscious grip that would make me look at my father, but give no other sign.” Eventually, Benton let her observe the debates on the floor of the Senate, and every day they would take a walk together and discuss her experiences. He instilled in her a dedication to Jacksonian democracy and to the egalitarian views of Jefferson, and taught her to value logic, to form opinions based on fact, and to defend her principles with courage and an unwavering ferocity

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HISTORY in the face of opposition. As she grew, her father began including her more and more frequently in his public life. They must have made for a striking sight as they walked the halls of Congress. She was a raven-haired beauty, he a towering frontiersman. The two forged a legendary bond, Jessie acting as the senator’s constant companion and confidante, a surrogate for her invalid mother. They were the talk of the town, traveling in the most rarefied social and political circles of the raucous, dusty capital. She was his consort and collaborator, his apprentice and creation. Their symbiosis was envied, her devotion to him inspiring. She was known for her magnetism and loveliness, with her full lips and rich dark hair pulled back in the fashion of the day. Considered “the prettiest girl in Washington,” Jessie’s slim figure was hinted at beneath her rustling silk gowns. UNCHARTED TERRITORY FOR YEARS SHE sat patiently and quietly in

her father’s book-lined room as a string of dignitaries — politicians, explorers, scientists, and diplomats — sought an audience with the senator, who was a prevailing force for American expansion and what would become Manifest Destiny. She had served as her father’s secretary, taking his dictation and eventually helping him research and write his many speeches. But Jessie had not just learned the classics and accompanied her father as an attractive escort. Her immersion in his political world was complete, giving her a sensibility lacking in other girls of her generation. All that she had heard and imbibed were as much a part of her education as any refinement of arts, literature, and culture. Many Washington men coveted the role Benton enjoyed with his daughter. She had already had two proposals of marriage, including one from President Martin Van Buren, who was forty years her senior, which had prompted Benton to cloister her in the rural academy. It was at the desk in her father’s study where she had seen and heard so much that made the snooty finishing school seem so irrelevant by comparison, where she found the conceited daughters of senators, congressmen, and military officers vapid to the point of inanity. The school’s focus on music and deportment was mundane compared with the rigorous academic curriculum her father imposed on her. She was desperate to return to the small desk that sat in the corner of her father’s library next to the fireplace, where lately

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something was going on that Jessie could not bear to miss. The oak table in the study of the massive, ivy-covered C Street home was piled with colorful maps of the still-uncharted American frontier. She had long been thrilled and intrigued by the constant discussion of expansionism, the girl an armchair adventurer before she was a teen. Most exciting of all was the presence at her father’s home of a dusky, blue-eyed young Army lieutenant fresh from an expedition exploring the West. John Charles Frémont had arrived in Washington to report his findings to the president — Jessie’s disappointed suitor, Van Buren. The 27-year-old surveyor was ensconced at a Capitol Hill townhouse, where he was charting the night sky and creating an enormous map of his recent findings. Word spread through the capital, prompting senators and congressmen to drop by to meet the dashing explorer. Among the first and most enthusiastic was Missouri’s stalwart Senator Benton, who had long been intoxicated by his desire to probe the American West in order to open trade with India. He was immediately enamored of Frémont, whom he saw as just the instrument to fulfill the national destiny he envisioned. The men had an instant bond, forged by their common vision of America’s future. The avuncular Benton took the young officer under his wing, tutoring him in the same way he had mentored his own daughter. When Benton introduced Jessie to John, she was spellbound by his “Gallic good looks.” His slight stature was oddly imposing, and tanned face and flashing white teeth rarities for the time and place. The two were instantly smitten, and when he brushed her hand with his lips Jessie was speechless. The “bloom of her girlish beauty” captivated John. From that moment, the couple would be passionately, fatefully, historically enmeshed — John her “very perfect gentle knight,” Jessie his “rose of rare color” with whom he had “fallen in love at first sight.” Her father Benton was not impressed. He well knew that Frémont, for all his courage and adventure in the West, was the illegitimate son of a French Royalist émigré and a runaway Southern belle. The poor man of dubious background and breeding was not a suitable mate for his exceptional daughter. Yet Benton was powerless in the face of such irresistible romantic chemistry. He was forced to recognize that the strong, decisive woman before him was no longer a schoolgirl, but an adult female who knew her own mind. Very much her father’s daughter, she had been groomed as much as any young

D E S E R T C O M P A N I O N .V E G A S

man to be president, if not for her gender. Called by one “a Benton in petticoats,” a later president, James Buchanan, described her as “the square root of Tom Benton.” The couple eloped, enraging the senator. But he could not stay angry with his daughter for long, and ultimately welcomed them both back to the C Street home. Much would be made later of Frémont’s opportune marriage to the daughter of one of America’s most influential figures. But Frémont was hardly the swashbuckling neophyte many historians have caricatured. When John married Jessie, he was already an expert topographer, a skilled astronomer, a student of botany and geology, an accomplished surveyor, and a proven leader of men. The favorable match accelerated a career already destined for success, if not greatness. John and Jessie would become the power couple of the Wild West — witnesses and participants in the defining moments of 19th-century American expansionism, from the exploration of the West to the Gold Rush to the birth of the Republican Party to the Civil War. Along the way, they maintained a marriage and shared a quixotic political and

ideological vision of what America should be. Through all the disappointment and failure over the decades to come — some of their own making, some at the hands of fate — they would remain steadfast in their commitment to one another and to their country. THE SECOND MIND IN 1842, THE couple threw themselves into

preparations for a Benton-supported expedition that would open migration to Oregon. Jessie naturally assumed the role of John’s assistant, secretary, and adviser, just as she so ably had done for her father, serving as the barrier between him and the many people wishing an audience with the celebrity explorer. Inventors and emigrants, job-seekers and adventurers, politicians and rivals made their way to him, and with a diplomacy and patience she would perfect in the future, she determined who should be granted access into their inner sanctum, and who would waste their precious creative and intimate time together. When John returned from that successful expedition where he had raised an American

flag on a peak in the Rockies, staking it as the gateway to the West, Jessie eagerly accepted the role of his “second mind” to co-author his report to the War Department. Calling herself John’s “amanuensis,” Jessie collaborated in transforming the expedition into a wonderful adventure story. Working closely as a team, their travelogue infused the landscape with drama and breathed life into the characters — Kit Carson, Indians, mountain men, fur traders, and scouts. On the written page, the unshaven, rough-hewn explorers became heroes, and for the first time in U.S. history an explorer’s report had a gripping narrative. “It was both a keenly observed description of a Western journey by a trained scientist and a dramatic adventure story buffed to a high literary polish,” wrote one historian. The War Department submitted Frémont’s 215-page report to Congress, which ordered 1,000 copies printed. Within days, it was excerpted in newspapers throughout America, and literary critics compared it to Robinson Crusoe. “Frémont chasing buffalo, Galahad Carson reclaiming the orphaned boy’s horses from the Indians,

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HISTORY

Odysseus (Alexis) Godey riding charge against hordes of the red butchers — there was here a spectacle that fed the nation’s deepest need,” wrote historian Bernard de Voto. Frémont was instantly famous, his name synonymous with the lure of the West romanticized by James Fenimore Cooper’s Leatherstocking Tales, and Washington Irving’s Adventures of Captain Bonneville. John and Jessie were the toast of Washington, their book a bestseller blending scientific detail with frontier gossip. Jessie waited in Washington, while John’s next expedition traversed the Mojave Desert, finally reaching the oasis of spring-fed meadows the Spanish called Las Vegas. The report from that expedition was three times longer and even more readable than the first, a literary adventure story filled with descriptions of natural beauty, tales of hardship and strife, and riveting human-interest anecdotes. This was an even more sensational bestseller, bringing international attention to the explorer whom his admirers had dubbed the Pathfinder. “Handsome Frémont and beautiful Jessie were everything a growing nation needed for a symbol of success, and the country was not to see this combination of youth and daring again until the later cults of hero worship for George and Elizabeth Custer, Charles and Anne Lindbergh, or John and Jacqueline Kennedy,” wrote one historian.

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Frémont became both symbol and manifestation of American expansion, his exploits elevated to a par with such mythic figures as Captain Cook and Coronado. Frémont had proved that the continent could be traveled and populated from sea to sea, and his report would serve as a guide for thousands of westward emigrants, delineating prime locations where new settlements could be built and crops could be raised. There followed several more expeditions — a series of partings and reunions for John and Jessie. As became a pattern in their marriage, a hero’s welcome and a round of public festivities greeted each of his returns as the couple geared up for their next literary collaboration. John was a superstar — the capital alive with talk of his adventures in California and Oregon, the Rockies and the Great Basin, the Sierra Nevada, and the Great Salt Lake — and invitations, letters, and requests for information besieged the attractive young couple. But John’s service in the Mexican-American War and his conquest of California — the plum of Manifest Destiny — would earn for him neither the eminence nor the fortune that might have been expected. Instead, in 1847 he would face charges of mutiny and insubordination, the result of a power struggle between Army General Stephen Watts Kearny and Navy Commodore Robert Field Stockton. Still, he would be named the military governor of California after

B E N T O N A N D F R É M O N T : P E R S O N A L C O L L E C T I O N O F S A L LY D E N T O N

FIGURES OF THE FRONTIER Thomas Hart Benton, left, was Jessie’s father. John C. Frémont, right, was her husband. In a society that constrained women’s roles, Jessie channeled her political activism through them.

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the Mexican surrender of the territory, only to be found guilty by a jury and quickly pardoned by President James K. Polk. Often compared to the prosecution of Aaron Burr on charges of treason, Frémont’s was one of the most dramatic court martial trials in U.S. history. All the while, Jessie stood resolutely beside him, and the two never forgave the government for what they saw as a betrayal. John resigned his Army commission, and the couple set their sights on California. John’s tales of the golden landscape — he had discovered and named the “Golden Gate” — depicting a veritable Garden of Eden, enticed Jessie and everyone else with whom he engaged. They moved with their two small children into a hacienda in Monterey, where they became involved in antislavery and statehood politics, and in 1850 John became one of California’s first U.S. senators. Though a confessed FreeSoil Democrat, John was not overtly political, and was widely seen as a creature of Jessie’s own ambition — objectives she could fulfill only through her husband, constrained as she was by societal and cultural limitations on women. ‘GIVE US JESSIE!’

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FIVE YEARS LATER, Jessie and John had been married for 13 years. They had made millions of dollars in gold mines. She had given birth to four children and buried two, and was pregnant with her fifth. They had traveled across the continent numerous times, alone and together, and experienced what one biographer called the “peaks of glory” and the “valleys of despair.” But that spring of 1855, John was being recruited by the new and radically progressive Republican Party to be the first presidential candidate to challenge slavery. By that fall, the viability of his candidacy was so promising that Jessie and John moved to New York City. The campaign marked the first time in American history that women were drawn into the political process. The “Frémont and Jessie” campaign, as it became known, inspired thousands to take to the streets, and their zeal for Jessie was palpable. Seen as a full-fledged partner in her husband’s pursuits, she became an overnight heroine to women who had been disenfranchised since the nation’s inception. Jessie straddled the boundaries of Victorian society — outspoken but polite, irreverent but tactful, opinionated but respectful — a woman so far ahead of her time that other women flocked to her. A devoted wife, dutiful daughter, engaged mother, and clear-minded intellectual,

the 31-year-old was the embodiment of womanly virtue and feminine power. More than anyone, she recognized her abilities and the limitations imposed upon her by society and culture. She once paraphrased Portia from Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar: “Should I not be stronger than my sex/ Being so Fathered and so Husbanded?” Still, she remained self-deprecating and deferential to both her father and her husband, whom she regarded as heroes of mythic proportions. That she was young, beautiful, well-bred, refined, educated, and rich further enhanced her aura. “She had seen much of the world, and knew men, cities, politics, and literature,” a biographer described her. “Vivacious, keenly interested in life, quick to measure others, strong in her dislikes, stronger in her likes, with a delightful combination of poise and animation.” John traveled frequently to Washington, while Jessie covertly strategized, ever sensitive to the potential backlash of operating beyond her womanly sphere. She turned childrearing over to the two maids she brought to the U.S. from France, and gave her full attention to the political matters at hand. The adulation of Jessie began within a week of John’s nomination, when a massive crowd gathered at the New York Tabernacle to welcome the first Republican presidential candidate. But when John appeared on the balcony to speak, the enthusiastic shouting drowned his words, calling “Jessie! Jessie! Give us Jessie!” Never before had a candidate’s wife been called to appear in public. When Jessie finally came onto the balcony, the crowd went wild — a hint of the coming summer of 1856, when processions miles long cheered for Jessie and John in the national campaign. Sixty-thousand people accompanied by 50 bands marched in Indianapolis alone. Women poured into the streets wearing violet-colored dresses in honor of Jessie’s favorite flower and color. She eschewed social engagements, writing a friend that when she ventured out into New York society, she found the “women were dressed within an inch of their lives and stupid as sheep.” But as Frémont’s candidacy gained momentum, as the couple became ubiquitous in New York newspaper articles, they were among the most highly sought-after invitees. Jessie viewed it all with a healthy nonchalance, accustomed as she had long been to the sycophantic whirlwind that attended social and political celebrities. “Just here & just now I am quite the fashion — 5th Avenue asks itself, ‘Have

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HISTORY we a Presidentess among us’ — and as I wear fine lace and purple I am in their eyes capable of filling the place.” Equal rights for women remained a far-off ideal, but activists in both the suffragist and antislavery movements pinned their hopes for the future on the nascent Republican Party. In one of the stormiest campaigns in American history to that point, Jessie was the behind-the-scenes manager every step of the way — a fact the Democrats exploited to suggest she “wore the pants” in the family. In one of the dirtiest campaigns, the Democrats — led by her father Benton, who actively supported John’s rival, James Buchanan —smeared the Frémonts for their abolitionist and progressive beliefs, as well as their broad-minded lifestyle. In the end, the new party had neither the money nor the political machine to fight back, and Buchanan won by 1.8 million votes to Frémont’s 1.3 million. The campaign was the death knell to the triangulated relationship between the Frémonts and Jessie’s father, a family breach that would never be restored. Jessie Benton Frémont was unquestionably a political animal, as schooled to

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be president as any man. Yet she could not even vote. All the while, she struggled to operate within the bounds of acceptable female behavior. As shrewd and ambitious, brilliant and idealistic as she was, her life and fortune were constrained, or dictated, by the era in which she lived. Viewed historically as merely the wife of a gifted adventurer and daughter of a larger-than-life politician, she was, in fact, an indomitable political force in her own right, with a mental acuity and emotional toughness more commonly associated at the time with the “stronger sex.” When President Abraham Lincoln made John a Union commander of the Western Department, Jessie was eager to play a role in the war, ever passionate about slavery and the union, and threw herself headlong into an advisory role to her husband. She earned the unflattering sobriquet of “General Jessie” — famously derided by Lincoln as a “female politician”— while elevating her legacy into the position of military and political strategist and national best-selling author of a book and nearly a hundred magazine articles. “She could not trek across the wilderness

with Indian scouts and Kit Carson, run for President, or command a Civil War department,” wrote one scholar, but she “created opportunities for herself by acting as her husband’s strategist and, later, as the chronicler of their history.” Still, she has been grossly misunderstood and chauvinistically demeaned, her motives distrusted, her assertiveness ridiculed, and her candor called into question. She was a woman caught in the crossfire of men whom history has designated as “great,” men whose competition and vanity, ambition and pride restricted her as she tried to influence the major events of her time. “‘For man is man and master of his fate,’” Jessie once wistfully quoted the poet, Alfred Lord Tennyson, in a letter to a friend. “That is poetry,” she added. “When one is not man but woman, you follow in the wake of both man and fate, and the prose of life proves one does not so easily be ‘master’ of fate.” ✦ Sally Denton is an investigative reporter, author, and historian. Her next book is titled All the Pretty Girls, and Me: A Memoir of Murder.

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44 ENTERTAINMENT

LAUGH PACK For aspiring comedians, breaking in means open-mic nights, small audiences, and jokes that don’t work — but at least you’re not alone BY

Mike Weatherford

t’s an old comedy club trick: Set the thermostat low. Make the room a little chilly, and it keeps the audience alert. But on this December night at ReBar in the Arts District, it’s the opposite. They’re lighting a heat lamp on the back patio. It’s 50 degrees outside, and Gus Langley, the host of Tuesday open-mic nights, is wearing a stocking cap and scarf. But screw the cold, Langley declares (in so many words) as he opens the show. “You gotta be tough,” adds James Johnson, the 20th of 22 comedians on the sign-up sheet. He’s from Michigan and built like a defensive tackle. “If you can get on a stage, you’re naked in a way,” he adds. “You’re showing people exactly who you are. Coming out here and being physically cold is nothing. It just shows that people have drive.” Otherwise, he says, “You wouldn’t be out on a Tuesday night, cold, knowing you have work in the morning, trying to just get five minutes.” This was Johnson’s second five minutes in as many nights. On Monday, he was at Dive Bar on Maryland Parkway. Dive Bar wasn’t a whole lot warmer than the ReBar patio, not with the front door propped open to vent the cigarette smoke and expedite the constant in-and-out flow to whatever other distractions were available in the parking lot. “Big James” is way down on the list, but his looming size becomes a running reference for those on before him. “My hand went right to my wallet when I saw you,” host Vincent Blackshear tells the room. Michael Robertson keeps it going in his set: “Big James says it’s okay to laugh. You’re like the dude from The Blind Side. I’ll adopt your ass.” The banter all reinforces a sense of community among the standups at this level of the profession. “I feel like we comics, we kind of need this,” Big James says. “It’s therapeutic in a way. Just get everything out.” Therapeutic is probably a good thing, since “we comics” is about the extent of the audience at either place. The second ReBar comedian, Evan Fonfa, even takes a poll: “Clap if you’re not a comic.” Only a few isolated friends and girlfriends respond. When ReBar started its comedy night in late 2017, “we didn’t

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STANDUP GUYS Gus Langley, above, and James Johnson, right, are aspiring comics working the local bar circuit.

even put numbers on the (sign-up) list. I was afraid we wouldn’t get more than 10 people,” says co-organizer and host John Gilligan. “Within a couple of months, we started capping it at 25.” Now, as many as 40 can show up. Blackshear figures Las Vegas has at least two dozen fledgling standups who show up at two or three open mics each week. At his Dive Bar show, the open mic’ers and invited “features” (more experienced standups who do longer sets) reveal different levels of polish and confidence. Some read from their phones. Others basically talk to their friends from the stage. (Tom Garland recaps his week hosting at Brad Garrett’s Comedy Club: “‘When can I come back?’ ‘Probably never. That was a fluke.’”) No one is dressed up, just hoodies and street clothes, except for one guy who goes up in costumes. At the Dive Bar, Chris Waldeck does his set as a Jimmy Buffett-styled tourist stereotype he calls Florida Man. At ReBar, his outfit, stage demeanor, and some of the jokes change when he opts for short-sleeved, Revenge of the Nerds polyester: “People look at me PHOTOGRAPHY

Lucky Wenzel

D E S E R T C O M P A N I O N .V E G A S

and say I’m the guy that girls should never accept drinks from.” “You can’t really bomb at an open mic. You’re just working on stuff,” Blackshear says. Some have the swagger, but no jokes. Others have random one-liners they can’t string together. Byron Austin is one of the few with both solid material and a relaxed persona. Since moving from Texas, he’s MARCH 2019

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been hitting four or five open mics a week. “The more stages, the better,” he says. “If you can make comedians laugh, you’re probably doing something right.” Still, the Dive Bar standups have to volley their jokes across an expanse of empty floor, to what Sam Lundstead calls “those sick, damaged comics sitting way in back.” And the wrap-around, Cheers-style bar in the back seems to be an opt-out zone. Add that to the constant traffic in and out of the open door, and by the time Austin goes up at nearly 11 p.m., few people seem dialed in. Dive Bar’s isn’t the only open mic on a Monday. There are plenty of tables at the Backstop Sports Pub in Boulder City, where host Manfred Hein urges people to scoot up front to fill them. “You’re seeing, maybe, history in the making. I’m stoned, whatever,” says Hein, who exudes a Bill and Ted slacker vibe onstage. He makes the audience of maybe 35 engage him in a weekly “Town Hall,” yelling out whatever’s on their mind, giving him topics to riff on. Like Blackshear at the Dive Bar, Hein is a few steps higher on the comedy ladder than most of the performers and provides a necessary sense of control. Backstop Monday isn’t technically an open-mic. There’s no sign-up sheet; Hein has to invite you. And the headliner at least gets paid nominal gas money for driving to Boulder City. Still, the lineup is not unlike an open-mic mixed bag. You might get the honed persona of John Campbell,

offering a dark riff on his mom pausing a VHS of The Wizard of Oz to explain the Munchkin-hanging legend to his childhood self. Or you might get a squirm-inducing duo called Merrill and Marek, serving up wigs and Asian stereotypes that would surely have been offensive had both of them been close enough to the single microphone to be heard. Nonetheless, the comics give the duo polite applause, and Hein puts a Band-aid on it: “We just need a microphone next time. That’d be good.” Offstage, he reflects, “I don’t think a five-minute weird set could completely take down a show. The features and the headliners, they’ll bring it all back.” He keeps the door open to newbies because “it just fascinates me to see someone go on for the first time.” On this night, one young guy is up for his third attempt, reading half-formed observations about his family from scribbled notes. “If you follow the show each week, you’ll know we’re pretty much trying to

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FUNNY BUSINESS “The more stages, the better,” says Byron Austin, left, of places like Dive Bar, where Vincent Blackshear, below right, hosts an open-mic night, as well as Downtown’s ReBar, below left.

APRIL 25-27, 2019

build him,” Hein says. “We’re all trying to build a comedian together.” ❉ ❉ ❉ ❉ ❉

open mics and showcases all over the valley, from Noreen’s Cocktail Lounge on East Tropicana to Rick’s Rollin Smoke BBQ or the Eclipse movie theater Downtown. But it’s a big jump from any of them to the Strip. Casino-based comedy rooms, such as Brad Garrett’s Comedy Club at the MGM Grand or the recently arrived Comedy Cellar at the Rio, tend to import road comics. Understandably, they don’t subject tourists to fledgling standups trying to find their comedic voice. “We’ve got a lot of good talent in this town, and it’s time for the casinos to start paying attention to us,” says Bobby Wayne Stauts. He’s one of the few who have made the jump, at least to the two casino venues most often cited by the local comics: Hooter’s hotel-casino, and the L.A. Comedy Club at The Strat. Stauts figures that he performed more than 500 sets in 2018, often by doing an early show at The Strat and then driving to Hooters. But, he says, “If these shows paid what they should? Oh, man, I’d be driving a car with air-conditioning. If I was an out-of-towner, they’d pay me three or four times as much money to come to town.” Traci Skene is one of the few local faces you’ll see at the Comedy Cellar, though she

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ENTERTAINMENT was already a longtime club pro when she moved to Las Vegas seven years ago. “The ‘A clubs’ in town, a lot of time the three comics on the bill could headline anywhere,” she says. Still, it only took the Comedy Cellar a few months to book some of the Las Vegas-based veterans. “If for no other reason, you need them for emergencies,” Skene says. And local vets such as Dennis Blair and Kathleen Dunbar bring years of showroom polish to older audiences. Hooters and The Strat offer cheaper tickets, skew to younger customers, and are “closer to say, a comedy club in a strip mall in Phoenix,” Skene notes. The onemile distance from ReBar’s patio to The Strat is more easily bridged than it used to be, thanks to locals-stacked programming such as fast-rising Jozalyn Sharp’s The Filth Factory at the L.A. Comedy Club on select Saturdays. Those who run The Strat and Hooters operations “live locally and think locally,” Gilligan says. And if the three miles from the Dive Bar to the Brad Garrett club at the MGM still feels like a long way, “it’s all a good thing,” ReBar comedy host Blackshear says. “You don’t want everything all on the

years ago, when they scouted for a different club. It’s a win-win, Housley says. Hilarious Seven doesn’t have the budget for the big names. But performing to around 100 paying civilians is “a different environment for those guys,” he says. “They can’t get any better if they’re sitting in horrible bars.” When it comes to listing Las Vegas-raised comedians who became theater-sized draws, it’s hard to think beyond one name: Jo Koy. The comedian (who returns to Wynn Las Vegas May 31-June 2) was 17 when his family moved to Las Vegas in 1988. After playing the likes of Buzzy’s Cafe on Maryland Parkway, Koy began renting out the Huntridge Theater to promote his own shows, packing them with the city’s extended Filipino community. But he still had to go to Los Angeles to get to that next level. A few years later, Las Vegas Academy graduate Baron Vaughn (who also acts in the Netflix comedy Grace and Frankie) moved on to Boston University and that city’s comedy training ground. As Las Vegas grows, so does the list of road comics with ties here. But the general consensus has long been that you come back to Las Vegas after honing

same level” in the casino-based clubs. “I don’t think you have a full comedy scene without (venues) that are accessible quickly, others that are accessible on an intermediate level, and others on an expert level.” But none of the casino-based venues are actually a “club,” where people linger at the bar. Crowds are seated not long before the show and clear out when it’s over. No hanging out. “In some ways these (local) guys are at kind of a disadvantage, because they can’t just come hang out the way a new comic can in another city,” Skene says. When open-mic’ers are segregated into the suburbs, “they play to the back of the room where the other comedians are, and go out of their way to amuse the comedians,” Skene says. “And that’s a totally different audience than amusing civilians. It’s one of the reasons why a lot of these comics don’t get any better.” Pete Housley, who produces The Hilarious Seven (“7 Comics, 70 Minutes”) at Hooters, agrees the open-mic nights “teach them some bad habits.” But he and comedian partner John Hilder are finding better people on the local scene than they did two

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your craft in one of those “comedy cities”: Los Angeles, New York, Boston, Denver. Don’t tell that to recent arrivals such as Johnson, Austin, Waldeck, or Logan Quiroz, who followed a commercial real-estate job from California. Quiroz is 25 and has been doing comedy for five of the seven months he’s lived in Las Vegas. But he’s already landed a paid set in Burbank. Quiroz is pop-star handsome and can sell a joke with a smile. But he also maximized his five-minute sets with a writing exercise, to see if he could base his whole set on a single topic: jean jackets. The first night, at Dive Bar, the other comedians erupted in a late-night, slap-happy roll at a shared in-joke: Quiroz forgot to wear the jean jacket. But the second night, going on earlier at ReBar — this time with the jacket — every joke landed: “I just learned how to wash a jean jacket. It’s different than any other article of clothing. Step One: Hang your jean jacket over a chair until the cigarette smell dies down. And that’s how you wash a jean jacket.” Quiroz feels this pack of open-mic’ers is progressing together at an encouraging pace. Still, he recently saw Dave Attell at

the Comedy Cellar, and “it’s like playing Pop Warner football and then going to an L.A. Rams game.” “Growing up a comic in Vegas is like growing up the child of a celebrity. There’s a lot to live up to,” says Kris Thomas, a seasoned road comic who decided last year it would be more affordable to emerge from his two-year comedy hiatus in Las Vegas than Los Angeles. Thomas, a Hilarious Seven regular, believes he moved to Las Vegas at the perfect time. “There’s a lot of rich opportunity here,” he says. “This is like the new L.A., I feel.” Clubs are shutting down elsewhere in the country, but Las Vegas will soon be adding another big-budget room at The Linq, bearing the name of late-night host Jimmy Kimmel. “You’re going to see a big fluctuation of comics coming here real soon,” Thomas predicts. “Vegas comics, they are getting stronger. There’s a new type of scene here a lot of people are getting hip to.” “I come to these open mics to get better. I host these open mics to get better. But while I’m here, it helps to make friends,” Blackshear says. “Everyone enjoys the

camaraderie part of it. The Las Vegas comedy community is in many different aspects a family. When you’re at the same place with the same people, so many times, you tend to like them. Because they understand what you go through.” For now, guys like Big James Johnson await their turn in the 50-degree cold. Johnson waited a year for Hertz to transfer him to Las Vegas as a utility mechanic, servicing rental cars at the airport. He got onstage for the first time two years ago, after his father died. “Just seeing him be miserable, working a 9-to-5 and not doing anything he should have done in his life, it kind of made him abuse substances and shit. He died at 55 of heroin. The only one who showed up to his funeral was me. Just seeing it made me say, ‘I’m gonna try it.’” (Comedy, not heroin.) No wonder Byron Austin calls the local comedy community “a life-support group.” “If this comedy thing don’t work out, I gotta have a backup plan,” he says from his stool at Dive Bar. But in the meantime, “If I’m any good, this is a good place to maybe find out.” ✦

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MORE THAN CHILD’S

PLAY As professional sports take the valley by storm, youth programs are teaching grit and good sportsmanship — and creating tomorrow’s stars Matt Jacob

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YOUTH SPORTS LAS VEGAS

PHOTOGRAPHY

Christopher Smith

MARCH 2019

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YOUTH SPORTS LAS VEGAS

THEY’RE HAVING A BALL

VEGAS UNITED VOLLEYBALL CLUB

IT’S A TYPICALLY CRISP winter evening in Las Vegas, but on this particular Friday in a strip mall near Valley View and Spring Mountain, the action is hot inside the Vegas United Volleyball Club training facility. Three teams of teenage girls occupy three of the four volleyball courts. For two hours, the 30 or so players will practice serving, setting, digging, and spiking. They’ll do so in various spirited drills overseen by several coaches, and then square off in some casual but competitive scrimmages. The fourth court? That one is occupied by a group of nine

HE LAS VEGAS VALLEY IS IN THE MIDST OF A

full-blown sports revolution. National pro sports organizations that used to snub Las Vegas have rolled into town with a vengeance, and they’ve flipped our sports identity from laughable to legitimate virtually overnight. After countless years with zero major professional sports franchises (but dozens of failed minor-league outfits), we’ve picked up four in the past five years alone: the NHL’s Golden Knights, the WNBA’s Aces, the United Soccer League’s Lights, and (soon) the NFL’s Raiders. And, if you believe the rumors, the NBA, Major League Baseball, and Major League Soccer have the moving trucks packed and the engines idling. We’re adding “sports” to our endless list of “Capital of the World” monikers. This revolution isn’t just happening in professional sports. Across the valley, tens of thousands of kids are stretching their muscles in myriad athletic pursuits. Bringing them together are dozens of organizations dedicated to particular sports, but also devoted to the larger goal of encouraging teamwork, sportsmanship, and determination. 52 | D E S E R T

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Robert Rios

youngsters — six boys, three girls, ranging in age from about 5 to 10 — who are at the midpoint of an eight-session youth academy. Each weekly session lasts about 90 minutes, with academy instructors teaching the basics of volleyball. On this particular night, knocking the ball over the net is cause for exuberant celebration. “It’s a great introduction to the game and an easy commitment,” Robert Rios, one of Vegas United’s three co-directors, says of the youth academy. “And if your kid happens to catch a spark, you can try another session before you start seeking out the next level of participation in our program, which is some form of team.” Rios and partners DJ Goodard and Karissa Guthrie formed Vegas United in September 2016, merging three club teams that each was separately operating. Since then, the nonprofit club has built a roster of more than

500 boys and girls who compete on teams that range in age from 12 to 18. Within each age group are multiple squads that compete at various levels. For instance, there are “local” teams that solely compete in tournaments around town; regional teams that travel to competitions in Southern California; and national teams that battle some of the top club programs all over the country. Rios and Guthrie say many of Vegas United’s more advanced athletes have gone on to play at the college level, with both boys and girls alumni even competing in the NCAA’s Division I Final Four. Such success stories are gratifying, but just as gratifying is seeing a 7-year-old girl show up to the first youth-academy session as a timid newcomer and finish two months later with a confident understanding of fundamentals — and an enthusiasm that leads her to beg her parents to do it again.

Our mission statement really is, ‘Creating life-altering possibilities via volleyball.’ So we get that volleyball is just the tool. What we really want is our kids to have access to an extraordinary life. And if this can be part of it, fantastic.

Vegas United Volleyball Club, Co-Director

Players at the Vegas United Club learn to serve, set, dig, and spike.

“We focus on the kids and on the family,” Rios says. “That’s our hashtag: Family. We’re very focused on the holistic experience. We care a lot about academics, we bring in college admission counselors, and we have a recruiting platform that’s part of our services for our families. “Parents are structuring their children’s lives now more than ever, so (volleyball is) just another activity, another box they can check as we’re trying to create these very complete people,” Rios says. “And our mission statement really is, ‘Creating life-altering possibilities via volleyball.’ So we get that volleyball is just the tool. What we really want is our kids to have access to an extraordinary life. And if this can be part of it, fantastic.” (VEGASUNITEDVC. COM)

CAPTURE THE FLAG

HENDERSON FLAG FOOTBALL LEAGUE

WITH SOBERING EVIDENCE linking tackle football with increased risk of brain trauma, more parents have become reluctant to let their kids strap on a helmet and hit the gridiron. Still, football remains one of America’s most popular sports, one that produces dozens of stars whom youngsters are going to idolize and imitate. There’s also no denying that football instills character traits such as toughness, perseverance, and teamwork. So how do you get the best of both worlds? Many parents have found the answer in flag football, which has exploded MARCH 2019

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Steve Lown

“What we’ve heard is that parents prefer to keep their kids in flag a little longer because they’re still learning the fundamentals and the rules,” Lown says. “The kids aren’t getting beat up, and parents don’t have to worry about head injuries — at least not as much. There still could be some incidental contact, but for the most part there isn’t any contact in our game, especially at the younger ages.” Besides the safety factor, Lown says HFFL’s ongoing popularity can be traced to the fact that all fall and spring games are played at the same location (Heritage Park). Also, because the league is nonprofit, all leftover funds following expenditures are used to improve the player and parent experiences. For instance, each season culminates with two teams from each division competing in a “Super Bowl” game, and that

The popular Henderson Flag Football League handles as many as 72 teams per season.

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day’s festivities include a large, league-sponsored picnic for players and families. Another plus for the HFFL: It’s directly affiliated with the NFL, so the reversible jerseys given to each player feature the name and logo of actual NFL teams. You can guess which team is now in high demand in each division. “The coaches get to pick their team names, and it used to be the Raiders were chosen, but not that often,” Lown says. “Now, every division has a Raiders!” (HENDERSONFLAG.COM)

JUST KICKIN’ IT

SOUTHERN NEVADA SOCCER ASSOCIATION

YOUTH SOCCER IS A BIG DEAL in Southern Nevada. From North Las Vegas to Summerlin to Boulder City, if you pass by a vast expanse of grass (or anything that resembles grass) on a Saturday, odds are you’ll see a youth soccer match. It’s certainly easy to understand the sport’s appeal: All you need is a ball, an open space, a couple of goals and some shin guards, and you’ve got a game. But a recent addition to our soccer community has provided a significant jolt of energy to the youth game: the arrival of the Las Vegas Lights. Following years of rumors that professional soccer was heading to Las Vegas, it became reality last year when the United Soccer League (think the equivalent of Triple-A baseball) awarded the city a franchise. During their inaugural season in 2018, the Lights regularly drew large, energetic D E S E R T C O M P A N I O N .V E G A S

C O U R T E S Y O F H E N D E R S O N F L AG F O OT B A L L L E AG U E / G A B I S U S O N G

in popularity in recent years. Multiple flag football organizations have popped up across the valley, with one of the first being the Henderson Flag Football League. Launched in 1997 as a fall-only league, the HFFL added a spring session several years ago, giving boys and girls ages 5-14 an opportunity to sling the pigskin virtually year-round. League president Steve Lown says the nonprofit organization is constructed to accommodate as many as 72 teams per season, with each squad usually composed of 10 players. The fall season frequently reaches capacity (roughly 700 kids), while the spring session attracts about 600 kids, all of whom compete in either recreational or competitive (“open”) divisions. Additionally, with girls flag football now recognized as a competitive high school sport, the HFFL recently added an all-girls 16-year-old division.

The coaches get to pick their team names, and it used to be the Raiders were chosen, but not that often. Now, every division has a Raiders!

Henderson Flag Football League, League President

crowds to Cashman Field — and those crowds featured thousands of youth players who now have the opportunity to learn the nuances of the game by watching highly skilled professionals right in their backyard. “UNLV on both the men’s and women’s side do a good job of producing quality teams and having a strong soccer culture,” says Key Reid, president of the Southern Nevada Soccer Association. “But to have our kids be able to go and watch a high-level professional match, it’s fantastic for their development, and great for the soccer culture in Las Vegas.” The Henderson-based SNSA was founded in 1998, when it was known as the Henderson United Youth Soccer Club, and it’s currently the valley’s largest soccer organization. Depending on the season, the SNSA’s recreational component serves 2,500 to 5,000 boys and girls from ages 5-12, with roughly 1,000 additional kids playing for competitive boys and girls teams under the Heat FC brand. The Heat FC squads compete in the Elite Clubs National League, which comprises boys and girls clubs from acros the country, with Heat FC being the league’s lone Nevada representative. Within that league, Heat FC teams in age divisions ranging from 12-18 compete in a conference against teams from the Phoenix and Southern California areas. Last year, Reid says two Heat FC squads won the conference, and this year, the U14 and U15 girls teams are ranked in the top 10 nationally by Top Rank Soccer. “Our goal for our most competitive players is for them to play college soccer,” Reid says. “Many of the kids who leave our program are the first kids in their families to go to college … and if you look at our top teams over

YOUTH SPORTS LAS VEGAS

Concussions: When In Doubt, Stay Out By PAU L

SZ Y DEL KO

PARENTS MUST be their child-athlete’s staunchest advocates when it comes to recognizing and treating head injuries on Southern Nevada’s fields, courts, and rinks. A jolt to the head or body can cause the brain to bounce or twist in the skull, creating chemical changes in the brain, sometimes stretching and damaging brain cells. Signs of concussion vary widely and can take hours or days to emerge, according to the Centers for Disease Control’s HEADS Up to Youth Sports website (cdc.gov/headsup). Symptoms include headache or “pressure” in the head; nausea or vomiting; balance problems; confusion and sluggishness. “Concussions are like snowflakes. Every concussion is different. One kid may have a headache; another kid may not. One kid may be really depressed; one may be really excited,” says Jeremy Haas, chairman of the Nevada State Board of Athletic Trainers. Haas is the area sports medicine coordinator of Select Physical Therapy, which provides athletic trainer services for the Clark County School District and teams, organizations, and tournaments. A 2011 Nevada law (included with other resources on the Nevada Interscholastic Activities Association website, niaa.com) outlines the protocol to handle such injuries and requires the signature of a qualified healthcare provider for a player to return to action after sustaining a concussion. The law has helped take coaches off the hook from being pressured by parents to play a child because it’s an important game or because of expensive fees, Haas says. CCSD exceeds the Nevada law, he adds, by requiring a player to pass a neurocognitive test and undergo five stages of graded exercises before resuming a sport. Flag and tackle football, soccer, and cheerleading are the most high-risk organized youth activities, he says. Parents must be vigilant before play even begins to ensure medical help is available quickly. “What they need to do is go to these clubs or soccer and football programs they are working with, and start asking questions, ‘Why don’t we have an athletic trainer here? Why isn’t there an athletic trainer available? What do we do if a kid gets a concussion?’” Haas says. More eyes on the action and early treatment help prevent even more serious injuries, says Dr. William Rosenberg of Desert Orthopedic Center. “The most difficult situations I see are kids who’ve had one hit to the head, are either symptomatic or didn’t disclose their symptoms, (but) are put out to play and then they get another hit to the head,” Rosenberg says. “Those are the concussions that last for months or years, or in some instances the athletes never fully recover.” A shortage of doctors trained in athletic-related concussions and a lack of medical resources on the club level are among the challenges facing Las Vegas, says Rosenberg, who works with the Golden Knights, Aces, and Cirque du Soleil. He is working with the Cleveland Clinic Lou Ruvo Center for Brain Health and other colleagues and stakeholders to organize a concussion symposium and develop a local network of providers in all disciplines who take care of concussions.

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PAR FOR THE COURSE

SOUTHERN NEVADA JUNIOR GOLF ASSOCIATION

AS A YOUNGSTER, NICOLE DUTT-ROBERTS and

Founded in 1998, the Southern Nevada Soccer Association is the valley’s largest soccer organization.

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many, many years, any child who makes it through our program and wants to continue playing has an opportunity to play college soccer. “That’s the main reason we participate in the ECNL, because in addition to the conference games, there are national events which are a mecca for college soccer recruiting. We’ll go to those events, and there will be 75 college soccer coaches on our .

MARCH 2019

sideline watching our kids play. The national exposure our kids get by playing in that league is priceless.” Equally priceless is the presence of the Lights, whose community outreach includes attempting to grow the game through partnerships with SNSA and similar local youth soccer leagues. “This isn’t half-baked semipro soccer,” Reid says of the Lights. “These are real professionals — either young players who have been loaned out from a Major League Soccer team or from a first-division team from another country, or former top-level pros who are working to try to get back. And to have highly respected soccer people like (owner) Brett Lashbrook and (manager) Eric Wynalda here in Las Vegas, building a professional franchise is so valuable for the youth player who aspires to play at a higher level.” (SNSASOCCER.COM)

her three siblings would spend their afternoons hacking their way around Las Vegas golf courses as members of the Southern Nevada Junior Golf Association. This was the late 1970s and early 1980s, when Dutt-Roberts recalls association membership topped out at about 40, including barely a dozen girls. Today, the organization boasts nearly 500 members, and its current director of fund development is none other than Dutt-Roberts. After some trying years that followed the 2015 folding of The First Tee of Southern Nevada — a youth golf organization that merged with the SNJGA around 2000 — the SNJGA is once again providing local kids the opportunity to learn not only the fundamentals of golf, but the ancillary life skills inherent to the sport. While the competitive aspect of the SNJGA is for golfers aged 12-18, the organization embraces younger kids through its First on Course/Learn to Play Golf program, led by SNJGA Director of Instruction Kerri Clark. For $75, youths from about age 6-13 can take part in four group lessons that are held at courses throughout the valley and taught by professional instructors, including Dutt-Roberts. When she got involved with the First on Course program in 2017, Dutt-Roberts says she had two students. Today, that number is as high as 17.

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Nikki Dutt-Roberts

C O U R T E S Y O F S O U T H E R N N E VA D A J U N I O R G O L F A S S O C I AT I O N

“Some of my students are returning, so now I’ve created an intermediate class,” she says. “I’ve got one student who has a lot of potential. He was someone who never held a golf club, but he’s very coordinated and I can see him moving forward. Of course, some of the kids are just out there for fun, and that’s okay. Our goal is to introduce golf to them and have it be something they play for a lifetime or with family. Or if they develop a knack and a passion for it, they can turn into regular players and possibly someday get a golf scholarship. Because that’s the other goal — scholarship.” As anyone who has swung a driver or attempted to sink a putt can attest, golf can be the most frustrating of sports. But through that frustration, young kids learn important lessons in patience, resolve and, most importantly, mental toughness. “Golf is very mental,” Dutt-Roberts says. “You have to have a good frame of mind and be a positive thinker — and I know those attributes apply to other sports as well, but golf is on a different level. If you’re mentally

strong and tough on the golf course, that means a lot. “I just finished an adult clinic today, and one of things I said to them was, ‘You have to believe you can. If you don’t believe you can, then you won’t.’” Another component to the SNJGA is a partnership with Youth on Course, a nonprofit organization that’s headquartered in Pebble Beach, California. Anyone who is an SNJGA member automatically qualifies for the Youth on Course program, which allows members to play a round at any of 25 Southern Nevada courses for $5 or less. Not a bad deal, especially considering that in golf, the only way to hit that perfect shot consistently is to practice, practice, practice. “For me, as a kid, it was all about those couple of shots you hit just perfectly that were so effortless — that’s the addictive part of golf,” Dutt-Roberts says. “You want to feel that again — you want to hit that pure shot and feel that excitement. And in golf, you don’t always get that, so you’re always striving to get better.” (SOUTHERNNEVADA

You have to have a good frame of mind and be a positive thinker — and I know those attributes apply to other sports as well, but golf is on a different level.

Southern Nevada Junior Golf Association, Instructor

JUNIORGOLF.COM)

The Southern Nevada Junior Golf Association teaches group lessons at courses throughout the valley.

LIGHT KNIGHTS

VEGAS GOLDEN KNIGHTSSKATING ACADEMY

HOCKEY? IN THE DESERT? It’ll never work! Suffice it to say, it didn’t take long to body check that theory into the boards. Indeed, we turned into a full-fledged hockey town pretty much the second the puck dropped on the Vegas Golden Knights’ inaugural season. To be clear, though, when we say “hockey town,” we’re not just talking about sold-out games at T-Mobile Arena, black-and-gold merch from head to toe, or knowing how to spell Marchessault. No, to become a true hockey town means being totally immersed in the sport, starting with instilling passion in kids at the youngest of ages. And so we present the following scene from Hockey Town: It’s midmorning on a Saturday inside VGK headquarters at City National Arena. With the big boys in Miami getting ready for a game that night against the Florida Panthers, about 150 kids have taken over one of the arena’s two sheets of ice for a skating lesson. A half-hour later, those kids skate off and another 150 skate on. A half-hour after that, another 150 off, another 150 on. The youngest of the bunch are 3-year-olds who use traffic cones to (occasionally) maintain their balance. The oldest are 16. All are participating in the fourth session of the eight-week Learn to Skate academy that the Golden Knights launched in May 2017. The goal: Teach kids the basics of skating (forward, backward, sideways, starting, stopping, etc.) One thing you’ll see a lot of MARCH 2019

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Kim Frank

at Learn to Skate? Falling. One thing you won’t see? A hockey stick. “I like to put it this way,” says Chad Goodwin, the Knights’ director of skating, “you can’t join the swim team without learning how to swim. Hockey is the same with skating.” Goodwin’s job during each session is to navigate between about 15 different stations, monitoring the kids’ progress as they work with nearly a dozen adult instructors. When Goodwin is convinced a participant has mastered a certain technique, he’ll promote that skater to the next station. For the Knights, Learn to

Skate is the jumping-off point in a tiered process that, ideally, will see hundreds of local boys and girls graduate to the next level (Learn to Play), then the next (Lil’ Knights), before ultimately joining what’s called a House League and/or the Junior Knights travel team. It’s all part of the Golden Knights’ grand plan to really turn this into Hockey Town — one that’s self-sustaining. “The overall mission is getting kids into hockey and getting them to be passionate about it,” says Kim Frank, the Knights’ vice president of marketing. “What you’ll often see in hockey is when kids reach 10, 11, 12 years old, their interest peters out a little bit. The big thing with us is we want to make sure kids have the opportunity to start young, but also give them the support to continue to play — make it fun and competitive from a young age so that by 10, 11, 12, they’re competitive with others their age around the country.” The participation numbers Frank rattles off are almost impossible to believe: After starting with a couple of hundred kids, Learn to Skate has grown to

You look at a 6-year-old kid currently in ‘Learn to Play,’ 12 years from now, you want to see them in that NHL draft!

Vegas Golden Knights, Vice President of Marketing

Children age 3 to 16 learn skating basics at the Vegas Golden Knights Skating Academy.

YOUTH SPORTS LAS VEGAS more 3,750. Learn to Play and Lil’ Knights debuted in April 2018 with 84 and roughly 60 participants, respectively; today, Frank says those numbers are at 425 and 1,300. Because of the rapid growth, sessions for each program are spread across multiple days of the week at three ice venues: City National, Sobe Ice Arena at Fiesta Rancho in North Las Vegas, and Las Vegas Ice Center at Flamingo and Fort Apache roads. “Obviously, when you look at our fan base, you know that the interest for our team is there, but that’s not the only reason our youth participation numbers are increasing,” Frank says. “It also has to do with the love kids are developing for the game. It’s been really fun to watch, and we’re excited to see what happens in the next couple of years.” With financial assistance from the NHL, the Golden Knights have made a substantial investment in both the Learn to Skate and Learn to Play programs. Each kid who participates in the former is provided with a helmet and skates for each session, while those who graduate to Learn to Play are given a full set of gear. Same goes for the Lil’ Knights, which is underwritten by the D Las Vegas. How will these entities know that their investments have paid off? Frank can answer that one: “We want more rinks in town, and we want to see our programs thriving and competing across the country, not just locally and up and down the West Coast. We also want the next NHL stars to come out of Las Vegas. You look at a 6-year-old kid currently in Learn to Play, 12 years from now, you want to see them in that NHL draft!” (CITYNATIONALARENA VEGAS.COM)

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D E S E R T C O M P A N I O N .V E G A S

11011 West Charleston Boulevard / Las Vegas / 702.797.7777 • redrock.sclv.com • Like us on Facebook.com/RedRock

FOR THE LOVE OF THE GAME PHOTOGRAPHY

MIKAYLA WHITMORE

YOUTH SPORTS LAS VEGAS

These coaches, mentors, and role models inspire kids to excel in more than sports

PAUL SZYDELKO

VOLLEYBALL: JESSICA ACUÑA

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FIGURE SKATING: VASSILI MOURZINE

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ARCHERY: A.J. HANAGATA

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DANCE: QUINN CALLAHAN

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HOCKEY: DELL TRUAX

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ELE VATING THEIR G AME Jessica Acuña

NEVADA JUNIORS VOLLEYBALL CLUB CLUB DIRECTOR AND COACH OF 17U TEAM

detail and a fierce competitive spirit drive Jessica Acuña, coach and director of Nevada Juniors Volleyball Club, the oldest junior volleyball club in the state. Mentored by club president and co-founder Bob Kelly, Acuña took up the sport in the eighth grade and immediately loved the pace, finesse, and strength required. She played under Kelly at Durango High School, where she lettered for three years on a team that won the 2002 state championship, continued to work with him in Nevada Juniors, and went on to play for Saint Mary’s College of California. Now when she designs practices for her 17-and-under team, she recalls the discipline and structure Kelly instilled in her. “Everything you did, you did the right way — being on time, warming up, how you approached your drills.” She espouses Gold Medal Squared, a philosophy of how to teach the game, and structures practices to create the most game-like reps, insisting, “You’ve got to train ugly!” Asking a lot of questions develops the girls’ volleyball IQ. What did you see? Why did she tip the ball that way? Why did that player on the opposing side do that? Observing key indicators quickens decision-making. The ultimate goal for many players is to play college volleyball. “Yes, that’s scholarship money on the line,” Acuña says. “I get it, but for me, I want them to walk away with life lessons that are going to carry over into their lives well beyond their volleyball careers.” “I adore her,” says Makenzi Abelman, who played under Acuña at Nevada Juniors for four years and who now plays at Cal State Fullerton on a scholarship. Acuña’s communication, consistency, and formality set her apart, Abelman says. “I learned to separate what’s going on personally and not let that affect me on the court,” she says. Acuña says new UNLV volleyball coach Dawn Sullivan and her staff have pushed enthusiasm for the sport to a new level, reaching out to younger athletes and sparking connections with the local volleyball community. “Youth volleyball has grown tremendously,” Acuña says. “What’s happened with the UNLV coaches and the investment of other programs in town, you’re starting to see Vegas really elevate its game.”

PERSISTENT ATTENTION TO

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I want them to walk away with life lessons that are going to carry over into their lives well beyond their volleyball careers.

D E S E R T C O M P A N I O N .V E G A S

CR E ATING SK ATER S F OR LIFE

Vassili Mourzine LAS VEGAS ICE CENTER

SK ATING PROGRAM DIRECTOR AND COACH

YOUTH SPORTS LAS VEGAS

A WOMAN PERSUADED by her 3-year-old granddaughter

to ice skate for the first time in three decades got in a good 20 minutes before hitting her face on the boards. Vassili Mourzine, skating program director and coach at the Las Vegas Ice Center, consoles her pride and applies, what else, an ice pack to her nose. The gregarious Mourzine says he is always amused when a skater says, “It doesn’t feel natural.” Well, you’re on two sharp pieces of metal on a sheet of ice, he reminds them. “There is nothing natural about it!” But Mourzine’s passion for figure skating and the ice persists. The Moscow-born Mourzine, who has skated since he was 4, was a member of the Russian Army skating club and in the USSR Olympic hopeful training program. He was a junior state champion of Moscow in singles figure skating in the USSR, and performed in professional ice shows throughout the world for a decade before settling in Las Vegas and coaching. “What I like about coaching is not the result — it’s the process of giving your knowledge to someone else and then seeing that knowledge being passed down.” MARCH 2019

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Mourzine revels in the accomplishments of his skaters, some of whom are high-schoolers who’ve been with him since they were tykes. Inspire them to skate when they’re children, and they will continue as adults — and bring their kids to the ice, he says. In part because it is an individual sport, competitive figure skating is very stressful both emotionally and physically, he says. “Sometimes I wanted to hide and cry in the locker room because I didn’t want to go on the ice. You have to overcome that inner fear to develop a stronger you, and that’s a huge part of it.” More than 800 skaters are filling the Ice Center’s skating and hockey classes to capacity this semester, the arrival of major league hockey in Las Vegas providing an undeniable boost. “Little boys want to become Golden Knights, and of course every single Golden Knights player knows how to skate. You have to start (somewhere). You don’t become a Golden Knight overnight.” Skating is a great form of exercise, and creating skaters for life (in addition to hitting the lottery

It’s one of the most rewarding things I’ve ever done. You see them feel good about themselves, and they want to give you a high-five and get excited and get out of their shell. — coaching a skater to the Olympic podium) is among Mourzine’s goals. Most gratifying is seeing the faces of kids in the Las Vegas Ice Theatre class preparing for the U.S. Nationals Theater on Ice competition in Alabama in June. They usually hit the rink at 6 a.m. on Saturdays. “They want to be there, and you can see it in their skating. You see it in their eyes. They say, ‘Listen, I’ve been waiting the whole week for this.’ Talk about the joy of coaching. Your heart melts. You make a difference.”

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D E S E R T C O M P A N I O N .V E G A S

A DAP T AND OV ERCOME

YOUTH SPORTS LAS VEGAS

competitive Brazilian jiu-jitsu athlete, a Le Cordon Bleu-trained chef, and onetime Mensa member doing opening an indoor archery range, Aces & Arrows, in a nondescript business park A.J. Hanagata in Henderson? ACES & ARROWS Helping people of all ages, including those who CO-OWNER AND COACH thought they would never be able to shoot an arrow, advance in a sport he pursued long before Katniss Everdeen made archery cool. A.J. Hanagata, who opened the 22-lane range, retail, and pro shop with business partner Ryan Sider in 2017, brings a cerebral approach to a sport that demands a low heart rate, agility, and concentration. “It’s definitely a highly mental game, but there’s a level of physicality to it,” Hanagata says. “It is completely reliant on what you do.” It also has a quality other shooting sports don’t have: silence.“You can achieve a more zen-like or meditative state because it is so quiet. You are not jarred by loud noises,” he says. Hanagata, who began launching arrows when he was Boy Scout, met Sider when Sider’s fiancé, Kara, was shooting at a Las Vegas range. Hanagata asked Sider why he wasn’t shooting, and Sider showed him his arm, missing a hand since birth. “I looked at it, and I was like, ‘Man, eff that. If you want to shoot, I’ll figure it out.’ I kept badgering him and ended up designing a way for him to pull back the bow and release the string despite him missing that hand. After I designed that, he was like, ‘I’ve always wanted to do this, but I thought it was one of those things that was out of reach.’” Since the two opened Aces & Arrows, making the sport accessible for those with physical issues has been a priority. Its motto: “Adapt and Overcome.” The shop assists with adaptive physical education, helping kids in wheelchairs, with cerebral palsy and those missing limbs. Participants in the Paralympic Sports Club Las Vegas, Opportunity Village, Angel City Games, and Wounded Warriors have benefited from Hanagata’s expertise. In addition to helping those with physical challenges, for the past year Hanagata has assisted at least one Henderson teenager already shooting at a high level take it up a notch. “A.J. helped me by instilling a whole new level of confidence, by motivating me whenever I shoot, and consistently letting me know that I belong,” says 18-year-old Elek Miller, a senior at Coral Academy of Science Las Vegas who in February won his fifth consecutive Nevada State Indoor championship, setting the U.S. Archery Nevada State indoor record. “He assists me with technical elements, physical-training guidance, and the mental game, but it’s especially his mental advice that has helped me move on to the next level as an archer.” Miller won a team gold last year at the U.S. Outdoor Nationals in Raleigh, North Carolina, and finished in the Top 10 nationally in 2018. “It’s one of the most rewarding things I’ve ever done,” Hanagata says. “Being a chef is cool and being able to make good food is awesome, but you’re stuck in the back so you don’t get to see people enjoy it. We’ve gotten to see kids in the short time we’ve been here get good at something. You see them feel good about themselves, and they want to give you a high-five and get excited and get out of their shell. It’s worth more than money.” Entry-level archery is relatively cheap and families can compete together, says Hanagata, cultivating a unique community, one arrow at a time. WHAT’S A FORMER

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AT TR AC TING NATIONAL AT TENTION Quinn Callahan

THE ROCK CENTER FOR DANCE FOUNDER/OWNER, ARTISTIC DIRECTOR AND INSTRUCTOR

WHEN 12 YOUNG dancers from Las Vegas wowed judges on NBC’s World of Dance last year for their Oct. 1 tribute, their dance company’s owner-coach Quinn Callahan took heart. The emotional performance kicked off four months of stressful work that ended four months later with The Rock Center for Dance group in the junior divisional finals. “I wanted to do it for our city and do our best to show Las Vegas off and give a wink and high-five to our city and mention it each time. I felt like we did that,” says Callahan, who began teaching in Las Vegas in 2000 and who opened The Rock Center 10 years ago. Drawn to dance from an early age, Callahan choreographed dances for children whom her aunt was babysitting. A career in professional dance resulted in severe hip arthritis and hip-resurfacing implants. She says her “Quintuition” soon told her she could make a difference by teaching. “When you share that common denominator with somebody who is a fraction of your age, it’s like this plane that you both live on. I just want to help them along the way and teach them.” Callahan says she is always amazed at the energy her dancers bring to the studio. “I work with these Type A kids. They’re workhorses. They work harder than any adults I’ve ever met in my life. They’re nonstop. They’re tired but when it comes time to dance, they’re ready.” Among The Rock Center dancers working especially hard these days is 13-year-old Sabine Nehls, who was on World of Dance and who will perform as “Drop” in One Night for One Drop on March 8 at Bellagio. “Miss Quinn has helped me so much,” says Nehls, who has been with The Rock Center for three years. “My technique is better than ever, and I couldn’t have done

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I work with these Type A kids. They’re workhorses. They work harder than any adults I’ve ever met in my life. They’re nonstop. They’re tired but when it comes time to dance, they’re ready.

it without her. My turns would never be the same without her. What she does with all of us is special, and I’m so thankful for her training.” Another World of Dance alumnus, 11-year-old Savannah Kristich is taking time away from The Rock to film Season 8 of Lifetime’s Dance Moms, which begins airing in June. To reach the highest level of competitive dance — or, really, any sport — is like climbing a thousand stairs, Callahan says. “What they want takes a crazy amount of hours, and they understand that. They come to me and The Rock to train like that, but I want them to look into somebody’s eyes and speak confidently. I want them to be able to put their phones down and have a decent conversation and not just be a dancer.”

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MOMENT UM ON ICE Dell Truax

VEGAS JR. GOLDEN KNIGHTS DIRECTOR OF COACHES

PERPETUATING THE Vegas Golden Knights’

YOUTH SPORTS LAS VEGAS

brand in youth hockey propels Del Truax, director of coaches for the Vegas Junior Golden Knights, as he glides across the ice at City National Arena. The 47-year-old former New York City fireman has been coaching hockey for more than 25 years. Truax has seen local interest in hockey boom in his four years in Las Vegas. The Golden Knights brand brings prestige, responsibility, and expectations. “Our kids wear the same uniform, the same sweater as the NHL club. For the kids, it’s that identity. We are the Junior Golden Knights, and that carries a lot of weight in how hard they’re working.” The association with the major league team helps when they’re scheduling games and enticing teams to travel. For parents, the VGK Foundation provides scholarship money and matches fundraising efforts. And for Truax, it’s nice because people want to coach in the same rink where stars such as Marc-André Fleury and William Karlsson practice. Truax helps hire and place three-dozen coaches, and develops weekly skills plans for the 11 teams under the Vegas Junior Golden Knights’ banner. There are 236 skaters in the Junior Golden Knights travel program, and more than 600 playing in other programs. Truax grew up in Long Island, New York, has skated since he was 4, and played through junior hockey. What first started as a way to help friends who were coaching became a career when he retired as a firefighter after developing lung issues in the aftermath of the September 11 terrorist attacks on New York City. “It was not really a calling,” Truax says of those early days. “Then you realize how much hockey has given to you — the life lessons, the teamwork, time management — all those skills you learn being part of a team and then how it benefited me as a fireman and that same kind of teamwork.” When kids ages 6-8 hit the ice, it’s about having fun, always moving, keeping their balance, stick-handling, competing in small games to work together and to teach them how to play away from the puck, Truax says. Then it’s about enhancing skills and introducing more sophisticated concepts such as how to move into the offensive zone, how to back-check, and how to pass off the pad. The ability to teach to your specific audience is the most important aspect of coaching, Truax says. “If you’re out there with 6-year-olds, you’ve got to have that ability to get down on one knee and act like a fool. Laugh, whatever it takes to engage with a 6-year-old mind.” Building a cohesive team and developing leadership skills are just as important as teaching the fundamentals, he says. “The biggest thing for me is to stay with the vision, work with the guys here and with the big club, and to keep using these best practices and these proven development models to give these kids everything we can give them.”

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MARKETPLACE SHOPS • DINING • GOODS

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Table 34 Featuring Chef Wes Kendrick’s contemporary American cuisine including fresh fish, wild game, duck and lamb, Certified Angus Beef and comfort food classics. Conveniently located off the 215 and Warm Springs. Serving dinner Tuesday - Saturday and Lunch Monday - Friday. 600 E Warm Springs Road 702-263-0034

Chickpeas Mediterranean Café A Mediterranean Fusion Restaurant serving Beef, Chicken and Lamb Kabobs as well as Vegan and Vegetarian dishes. Catering to the medical, pharmaceutical and business communities. Winner of the “Top 10 Caterers in Las Vegas” on ezcater.com Northwest Corner of Flamingo and Jones 6110 W. Flamingo Road 702-405-6067 www.chickpeaslv.com

MARCH 8 Sammy Miller and the Congregation

The Guide ▼

ART THROUGH MARCH 16 Axis Mundo: Queer Networks in Chicano L.A.

This installation maps the intersections and collaborations among a network of queer Chicano artists and their artistic collaborators from the late 1960s to the early 1990s. Free. Marjorie Barrick Museum at UNLV, unlv.edu

THROUGH MARCH 31 Scholastic Art & Writing Awards The nation's longest-running, most prestigious recognition program for creative teens. 9A–5P, free for members or with paid general admission. Big Springs Gallery at Springs Preserve, springspreserve. org

MARCH 4–15 MFA Thesis Exhibition — Nanda Sharif-Pour

Sharif-Pour uses traditional mediums to explore both psychological states and sociological roles through her figurative portrayal of

women in sparse, mute, and to some extent artificial spaces. Free. Donna Beam Fine Art Gallery at UNLV, unlv.edu

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MUSIC MARCH 5 Symphonic Winds in Concert

The UNLV Symphonic Winds perform, conducted by Anthony LaBounty. 7:30P, $10. Lee and Thomas Beam Music Center at UNLV, unlv.edu

MARCH 6 Danú

Start your St. Patrick’s Day celebration a little early with one of today’s leading traditional Irish ensembles. 7:30P, $20–$50. Artemus W. Ham Concert Hall at UNLV, unlv.edu

MARCH 7 Band Of Horses and She Returns From War

Two indie rock bands with award-winning members will perform their legendary songs. 18+ only. 7P, $35–$40. Brooklyn Bowl at The Linq, brooklyn bowl.com

The jazz drummer and his ensemble have played the White House, Lincoln Center, and the Hollywood Bowl. 8P, $39–$59. Myron’s Cabaret Jazz at The Smith Center, thesmith center.com

MARCH 9 Alash

These are the masters of Tuvan throat singing (xöömei), a remarkable technique for singing multiple pitches at the same time. 4P, free. Main Theater at Clark County Library, lvccld.org

MARCH 10 Las Vegas Brass Band Spring Concert

A concert of music that recognizes the season of new beginnings, under the direction of Dr. Richard McGee. 2P, free. Main Theater at Clark County Library, lvccld.org

MARCH 13 Latin Jazz Ensemble

Part of the UNLV Jazz Concert Series. 7P, free. Main Theater at Clark County Library, lvccld.org

MARCH 13 Stephen Marley 2019 Acoustic Jams Tour

Stephen "Ragga" Marley is the second-eldest son of reggae legends Bob and Rita Marley. 7P, $29–$41. Brooklyn Bowl at The Linq, brooklynbowl.com

MARCH 15 Veronica Swift Featuring the Benny Green Trio

The young jazz singer is touring behind her new album. 7P, $39–$55.

Myron’s Cabaret Jazz at The Smith Center, thesmith center.com

MARCH 15 Bernadette Peters

The legendary singer and actress performs songs from throughout her Broadway career, backed by a 10-piece orchestra. 7:30P, $39–$129. Reynolds Hall at The Smith Center, thesmithcenter. com

MARCH 15 Spring Magic with the Nevada Chamber Orchestra Let the magic of spring and the music of the masters enchant you! Conducted by Dr. Gregory Maldonado. 7:30P, free. Theater at Summerlin Library, lvccld.org

MARCH 15–17 Dialogues of the Carmelites

The UNLV Opera Theater presents an opera by Francis Poulenc. Fri-Sat 7:30P; Sun 2P, $25. Judy Bayley Theatre at UNLV, unlv.edu

MARCH 16 Swing into Spring with the Swing It! Girls

Enjoy a fresh, foot-tapping, family-friendly show filled with the boogie-woogie hits you love, plus a few surprises. 3P, free. Auditorium at Windmill Library, lvccld.org

MARCH 17 An Irish Cowpoke Hoedown

As a welcome antidote to green beer, corned beef, and cabbage, join the Jackson Family Band & Cloggers (also known as

Mama’s Wranglers), with another fun, family-friendly, and not entirely Irish show for St. Patrick’s Day. 3P, free. Auditorium at Windmill Library,lvccld.org

MARCH 21 Lena Prima with The Lawrence Sieberth Orchestra

The singer is touring behind her new album, Prima La Famiglia, and will also be performing hits of her father, the legendary Louis Prima. 7P, $39–$65. Myron’s Cabaret Jazz at The Smith Center, thesmith center.com

MARCH 21 Las Vegas Philharmonic Spotlight II: The Passion and Romance of the Harp

Select members of the Philharmonic perform the works of Dussek, Ibert, Saint-Saëns, Glinka, and Piazzola. 7:30P, $70. Troesh Studio Theater at The Smith Center, the smithcenter.com

MARCH 24 From Russia with Love

A celebration of Russian arts, music, and culture through a diverse program of chamber and vocal music by Russian composers. 2P, free. Main Theater at Clark County Library, lvccld.org

MARCH 27 NEXTET New Music: Music by Michael Torke

Las Vegas-based composer Torke presents a concert of his upbeat works. 7P, free. Lee and Thomas Beam Music Center at UNLV, unlv.edu

MARCH 29 Florence Jowers

Southern Nevada Chapter of the American Guild of Organists presents an organ recital. 7:30P, free. Lee and Thomas Beam Music Center at UNLV, unlv.edu

APRIL 5 Jack and the Beanstalk

Opera Las Vegas returns with another fast-paced, family-friendly show guaranteed to delight children of all ages. 4P, free. Jewel Box Theater at Clark County Library, lvccld.org

APRIL 5 André Mehmari Like the masters who precede him — Bach, Beethoven, Chopin — Brazilian pianist Mehmari is equal parts composer, improviser, and keyboard virtuoso. 7P, free. Main Theater at Clark County Library, lvccld.org

▼

MARCH 24 Soul Sessions with Los Yesterdays and Thee Sinseers with DJ John Doe

THEATER & COMEDY THROUGH MARCH 24 Tight End

The bands present an evening of soul, doo-wop, and R&B. 4:30 and 7:30P, $35–$55. Myron’s Cabaret Jazz at The Smith Center, thesmithcenter.com

Rachel Bykowski’s play about a high school girl’s pursuit to be on the football team. Thu–Sat 8P; Sun 5P, $15–$25. Majestic Repertory Theatre, majestic repertory.com

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The Guide MARCH 8–17 Blood Wedding

On the morning of her arranged wedding, a young bride is visited by the former love of her life. Old passions of love and hate are rekindled when the two lovers escape together. Thu–Sat 7:30P; Sun 2P, $20. Alta Ham Fine Arts at UNLV, unlv.edu

Great Performances: Andrea Bocelli @ 60 Monday, March 4 at 9:30 p.m.

MARCH 16 Plenty O’Blarney with Las Vegas Improvisational Players!

LVIP is the only family-friendly improv in the valley with musical and shortform skits all made up on the spot from suggestions by the audience. 7P, $10; $5 kids, seniors, and military. Show Creators Studios, 4455 W. Sunset Road, lvimprov.com

MARCH 19–24 Hello, Dolly!

Shakespeare & Hathaway – Private Investigators

A Conversation with Ken Burns Tuesday, March 12 at 8 p.m.

Women, War & Peace Season 2 Monday, March 25 & Tuesday, March 26 at 9 p.m. & 10 p.m.

Thursdays at 8 p.m. beginning March 21

Call the Midwife Season 8 Sunday, March 31 at 8 p.m.

Trusted. Valued. Essential. • 702.799.1010 • VegasPBS.org 70 | D E S E R T

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The classic Broadway musical returns with Betty Buckley in the title role. Tue–Sun 7:30; Sat– Sun 2P, $36–$142. Reynolds Hall at The Smith Center, the smithcenter.com

MARCH 20–APRIL 7 Sweat

In Reading, Pa., there’s talk of union lock-outs, massive lay-offs, and jobs going overseas. As rumors quickly become reality, a group of life-long friends gather at their local bar to joke and blow off steam while struggling to stand together as everything else falls apart. Thu–Sat 8P; Sun 2P, $20–$25. Cockroach Theatre, 1025 First St. #110, cockroach theatre.com

MARCH 30 Love Me or Leave Me: Letters of Longing, Loving, and Leaving Hear from the likes

of Mark Twain, Frida Kahlo, Charles Bukowski, George Carlin, Virginia Woolf, Napoleon Bonaparte, and a nice kid who grew up to be Slash. 2P, free. Main Theater at Clark County Library, lvccld.org

▼

DANCE MARCH 6–10 Shen Yun 2019

Chinese dance, orchestral music, and authentic costumes take you through 5,000 years of Chinese history and culture. Wed–Sat 7:30P; Thu and Sat 2P; Sun 1P, $84– $224. Reynolds Hall at The Smith Center, thesmithcenter.com

MARCH 20 Ballet Folklorico Dance Showcase

Join a journey through time and place as Clark County School District student dance groups perform popular folkloric dances from various regions and periods. 7P, free. Main Theater at Clark County Library, lvccld.org

▼

DISCUSSIONS & READINGS MARCH 7 Virginia Hill, Queen of the Mob

Lissa Townsend Rodgers delves into the life story of Virginia Hill, girlfriend of Bugsy Siegel and one of the few women the mob trusted to do business for them. 7P, Free. Jewel Box Theater at Clark County Library, lvccld.org

MARCH 29 Staged Reading of Edward Albee’s Three Tall Women

A young woman has been sent to sort

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out the finances of an elderly client, but it's more than money that gets put through the wringer as the older woman's life is laid out in all of its charming, vicious, and wretched glory. 7:30P, free. Main Theater at Clark County Library, lvccld.org

MARCH 30 Vegas by The Book!

Seven local authors sell their books and talk about the city they love. 12P, free. Conference Room Outdoor Patio at Summerlin Library, lvccld.org

▼

FAMILY & FESTIVALS MARCH 16 Disney's DCappella

Seven vocalists perform acappella versions of Disney classics. 7:30P, $29–$65. Reynolds Hall at The Smith Center, thesmith center.com

▼

FUNDRAISERS MARCH 4 Mondays Dark – Communities in Schools

Mark Shunock gathers an eclectic cast of guests for 90 minutes of chat, entertainment, and a lot of laughs — all to benefit a local charity. 8P, $20– $50. The Space, 3460 Cavaretta Court, mondays dark.com

MARCH 8 Evening of Hope Honoree Luncheon

The event honors the volunteers working with those fighting childhood cancer. 11A, $50. Enclave LV, 5810 S. Eastern Ave., candlelighters nv.org

MARCH 8 One Night for One Drop

2018-2019 SEASON

Cirque du Soleil cast and crew donate their talent and time to create a unique and breathtaking theatrical show for one night only in support of One Drop, dedicated to providing access to safe water. 7:30P, $125–$325. “O” Theatre at Bellagio Resort & Casino, onenight. onedrop.org

DANÚ

with members of the Coronado High School Madrigal Singers Wednesday, March 6, 2019 7:30 p.m. $50 · $40 · $30 · $20

Start your St. Patrick’s Day celebration a little early with one of today’s leading traditional Irish ensembles. Danú’s virtuosi performers hail from Waterford, Dublin, Donegal and Cork.

MARCH 9 Evening of Hope

Support survivors of childhood cancer while you partake in unlimited decadent samplings from culinary artists, crafted cocktails, a beer garden, music by country artist John King, a lovely children's art gallery, and live and silent auctions. 6P, $200–$225. Enclave LV, 5810 S. Eastern Ave., candlelighters nv.org

DVOŘÁK CELEBRATION Tuesday, April 9, 2019 • 7:30 p.m. $25

In conjunction with the “Music Unwound: Dvořák in America” project, UNLV faculty and members of the Las Vegas Philharmonic celebrate the music of Dvořák with the famed Viola Quintet and the Wind Serenade.

MARCH 9 Walk for Wishes

This Make-A-Wish fundraiser celebrates more than 300,000 wishes already granted while raising funds for future wishes. 7:30A, $30 adults; $20 kids (includes free t-shirt). Town Square, snv.wish.org

MARCH 19 Medical Society Alliance 18th Annual Fashion Show and Luncheon

This year’s fashion show, silent auction, and luncheon benefits charities for autism. 10A, $225 individual, multiple table levels available. Four Seasons Hotel, ccmsa-lv.org

JASON VIEAUX

Friday, April 12, 2019 • 7:30 p.m. $45

Sponsored by Dr. Mitchell and Pearl Forman Gramophone calls the GRAMMY®winning Jason Vieaux “among the elite of today’s classical guitarists,” and NPR describes him as “precise and soulful.”

pac.unlv.edu

702-895-2787

Although unanticipated, artists, dates, and times are subject to change without notice.

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END NOTE

MARCH 1, 1977: Six days after the disappearance of powerful Las Vegas Culinary Union leader Al Bramlet, his friend remarks, “I just hope he decided to take a slight vacation.” MARCH 2, 1925: William A. Clark Sr., 86, after whom Clark County was named in 1909 and whom Mark Twain called “a most disgusting creature,” has passed away in New York City. MARCH 3, 2002: A government study estimates 11,000 people have died from cancer caused by the nation’s 210 atmospheric atomic tests, 100 of which were at the Nevada Test Site. MARCH 4, 1930: When a “20,000-year-old civilization” is reportedly dug up under four feet of ancient sloth droppings near our city, a newspaper headline reads: VEGAS CRADLE OF HUMAN RACE. MARCH 5, 1955: Nevada Test Site security guard Eugene Haynes, 39, is told that the “39 roentgens of accidental radiation” he received from a March 1 atomic detonation will not cause him any serious harm. MARCH 6, 1957: Singer-dancer Maya Angelou, “Miss Calypso,” appears at the Hotel El Cortez. MARCH 7, 1914: The modern wonder that currently “proves our city’s greatness” is the new automated ticket-selling machine at the Majestic Theatre on Fremont Street, able to pop out “five tickets with a slight pressure of the finger.” MARCH 8, 1916: A rabies epidemic is declared after two dogs test positive for the disease. MARCH 9, 1917: Clark County high school girls are “taught to be proficient in household duties.” MARCH 10, 1935: To help fight dwindling revenues during the Great Depression, state Senator Frank Ryan proposes a $10 annual tax, called “the freedom tax,” on all unmarried men between 25 and 50 years old.

RANDOM ACCESS MEMORY Droll, odd, poignant, and awkward moments from the many Marches of Las Vegas history BY

Chip Mosher

MARCH 11, 1932: Following an epidemic of burglaries, Police Chief Clay Williams orders his officers to “shoot and shoot to kill then question the suspects after.” MARCH 12, 1951: William Connors, 52, extinguishes his own life in a flash fire after lighting a cigarette while confined to an oxygen tent at the county hospital. MARCH 13, 1932: Heber Grant, “president and the highest dignitary of the LDS Church to ever visit Las Vegas,” arrives. MARCH 14, 1967: New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison, during his “startling probe” of the Kennedy assassination controversy, is spending seven days at the Sands Hotel under the assumed name “Robinson.” MARCH 15, 1933: In handing down a stiff sentence to “negress” Marie McCoy, guilty of vagrancy, Judge McNamee threatens to give, in the future, “a life sentence to all girls who (hang) around the Fresh Air Café, a popular colored gathering place.” MARCH 16, 2001: Even though he knew his former-linebackerturned-high-school-coach Duane Johnson had been “fired from a Utah school for sexual

Sources: Las Vegas Age; Las Vegas Morning Tribune; Las Vegas Review-Journal; Las Vegas Sun

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misconduct,” former BYU head football coach LaVell Edwards admits he recommended Johnson to the Clark County School District for a teaching position. Now, Johnson stands accused by police of “committing a sex offense against a 13-year-old student in Las Vegas.” MARCH 17, 1977: Union leader Al Bramlet’s body is discovered under a pile of rocks in the desert, “shot six times, including once in each ear.” MARCH 18, 1916: A new city law to kill “all worthless curs running at large” has resulted in 40 dog deaths, eradicating the local rabies outbreak. MARCH 19, 1916: Oops. A “formerly gentle horse,” now suspected of having rabies, bites off Paul Stewarn’s finger. MARCH 20, 1989: John 3:16 Cook, former “con-man” turned evangelist for the homeless and often seen around the Downtown corridor in a truck with “Soup, Soap, Hope” painted on its side, appears on the Sally Jessy Raphael talk show. MARCH 21, 1931: After passing the “wide-open gambling” and the “six-week divorce” bills, Nevada’s Legislature is being hailed as “the most liberalizing one in our nation’s history.” MARCH 22, 2001: About 300 students walk out of Vo-Tech High School in protest after a student suspended for threatening others is allowed to return to school. MARCH 23, 1909: Dentist Paul McIntosh, “thoroughly reliable

in up-to-date dentistry,” is in town from L.A. for one week to receive patients in his room at the Las Vegas Hotel. MARCH 24, 1922: Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover is visiting the area to approve the Boulder Canyon Dam Site “for the greatest water storage project in the world.” MARCH 25, 1951: The Mafia reportedly has proclaimed Las Vegas neutral territory “to the extent that no visiting thugs may shoot down a colleague even when moved by righteous anger.” MARCH 26, 2001: Joseph DeLuca, 44, is sentenced to 10 years in prison for his role in the 1997 murder here of Herbert “Fat Herbie” Blitzstein, a 62-yearold Chicago mob associate. MARCH 27, 1951: Irene Sweeney, organizer for The League of Women Voters, is in town to promote opening the first “league” in Nevada. MARCH 28, 1917: While climbing a cottonwood to watch a baseball game between the Las Vegas and Salt Lake teams, Edna Wyckoff, 12, is electrocuted to death by a power line. MARCH 29, 1953: The film Operation A-Bomb, in “thrilling Eastman color,” is playing at the Fremont Theater. However, during the past two weeks at the Nevada Test Site, 65 miles away, two above-ground atomic tests have been conducted in flashy real-life colors. MARCH 30, 1907: A local ad for Hood’s Sarsaparilla promises a cure for the spring humors — “impure or effete matters accumulated in the blood during winter.” MARCH 31, 18,000 BCE: Giant sloths slog through the valley, leaving behind thick trails of droppings near what, in the future, will be the intersection of Fremont Street and Las Vegas Boulevard.

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April 25, 2019 Ribbon-Cutting Ceremony 10 a.m.

The Vegas Golden Knights Official Library Card! Support your library and your hometown hockey team by claiming your very own Vegas Golden Knights “Vegas Born” library card. Sign up online at LVCCLD.org, or visit your nearest library branch.

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This 40,000 sq. ft. building represents 21st century library design and is a milestone in the history of the East Las Vegas community.

• Free WiFi • Teen Zone • Tech Art Lab • Homework Help Center

• Toy Lending Library • Demonstration Kitchen • Makerspace Lab • One-Stop Career Center

• Computer Labs • Skills Training • Employment Programs • Spanish-Language Materials