Nov. 7 will mark a year since the ribbon cutting of the St. Jude’s Ranch for Children Healing Center and shortly after, the opening of the since renamed school, Amy Ayoub Academy of Hope.
Opinion
I don’t often write in this space about things that have already been in the paper. There are a couple of reasons for that. First, it would often mean writing about “old news.”
Pardon the headline wordplay, but at age 100 (with 101 approaching next month) the celebrated Sara [Katherine Pittard] Denton has lived a life with few dents along the way.
It’s that dreaded time of year again. Monstrous in magnitude. A mysterious ritual. Strange, scary, sinister, and spooky. Macabre and menacing. Dark and gloomy. Dastardly and disturbing. Gruesome and ghoulish. Frightful. Creepy. Petrifying. Even eerie. A wicked, morbid tradition that haunts our city annually.
There is an old but true saying: “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.”
Sunday is Mother’s Day. To all the moms (and dads who fill that role) out there, I wish you a happy day and offer gratitude for what you do.
We are beginning to look toward making a way back to our normal lives. More likely, we will find ways to a new normal. It does not appear it will be done quickly as the COVID-19 virus threat still exists.
I hope you are among the lucky ones who are quarantined at home with someone you love. I can’t imagine the feelings of loneliness that would come with being truly self-isolated.
The newspaper or news website you are reading is in trouble. Like many other businesses, the COVID-19 crisis has eliminated most of its revenue but not its expenses, delivering a body blow to a business model that was already under pressure. But it continues to publish, providing your community with timely, accurate information about the crisis.
Like most of you, I am missing time spent in the great outdoors.
As I write this commentary, the majority of businesses other than grocery and hardware stores, gas stations and convenience stores are shuttered. I realize that this pandemic is serious and will likely cause many to suffer the illness and many will die from it. However, I don’t believe it is necessary to shut down the entire U.S. economy.
As we stay home for Nevada, we are renewing interest in old hobbies, taking up new ones and devoting time to things we never seemed to have enough time for before. We are exercising. We are cleaning. We are doing home-improvement projects. And we are cooking.
To say I’ve always been anxious to get things done is an understatement. It probably started when I was about 10 years old and began working in my grandmother’s grocery store. I had to be quick when it came to waiting on customers, bagging groceries, taking their money, making change and waiting on the next customer.
Although the resort-hotels of my company, Las Vegas Sands, are shuttered, I’m paying every one of our nearly 10,000 employees as though they were still working. We’re even working to make up for lost tips. I hope to do that right up until the time that we can reopen our businesses.
In the 1970s, I listened as a lecturer explained that in police work it seemed as though 20 percent of the population hated the police no matter how well they performed, 20 percent loved them no matter how poorly they did and the remaining 60 percent stayed on the fence to gather facts before reacting. I realized how true that is the older I got.
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For several years, the former Vons building on Boulder City Parkway has sat empty. But a big step was taken last week to change that.
At just more than six months on the job, City Manager Ned Thomas does not need to be worried about keeping the gig as city council members gathered Wednesday morning for an earlier-than-normal performance evaluation and every comment from every member present (Councilwoman Sherri Jorgensen was absent) could be fairly characterized as stellar.
This past Friday, Boulder City Company Store teamed with the Las Vegas-based Manea Events to bring an authentic luau to town. The event featured music, food and entertainment from the islands. The highlight was the fire-dance performance to end the evening.
If one is offered an equal seat at the table on a regional group that advises on policy for an area where that person’s population is equal to .005% of the total region at a cost of $5,000 per year, does that sound like a pretty good deal?
