Dave Berns
Story Archive
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EducationQ&A with David Wilson, principal at Chaparral High School
Wednesday, Aug. 31, 2011 He inherited a school that was in poor shape. There were few working toilets. Air ducts were covered with filth. Carpets and tile were blackened from years of poor maintenance. Windows throughout the campus were deeply marked by knives and car keys.
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NevadaNote to GOP: Grow a pair
Thursday, Sept. 4, 2008 My buddy Fast Jimmy says too many politicians lack “nails.” “They’re almost as bad as reporters,” Jimmy says, flashing his best Jersey-boy smirk. “Their egos are weak, and they need the attention. Besides, they got no nails.”
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State of the Valley
Minority report
Thursday, Aug. 21, 2008 The e-mail sat in my in-box, an angry bullet fired by a frustrated white man. Minutes before, he’d heard San Diego Union-Tribune columnist Ruben Navarette refer to white Americans as “lazy.”
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State of the Valley
There’s wind in them thar hills
Thursday, July 24, 2008 The green crowd is at it again, this time pushing for wind farms throughout much of the West and Great Plains. TV commercials are appearing nationally making the case, saying that a sea of wind towers could free us from our oil dependency, with a boost from cars fueled by natural gas.
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State of the ValleyThe Gibbons follies
Thursday, July 17, 2008 It’s ridiculous, just plain ridiculous to assume that Gov. Jim Gibbons used any political influence to receive a special designation that lowered his annual property tax liability from about $5,000 to $15 on 40 acres of sagebrush in rural Elko County.
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State of the Valley
Read between the party lines
Thursday, July 10, 2008 We’re reeling from a series of jolts: $4.50-a-gallon gasoline, neighborhoods shaken by empty homes, rapidly rising food prices, growing unemployment and a war in its sixth year. We’re seeking solace, a sense that things will be okay, but there’s no consensus on solutions. It’s the American way. Greater wisdom can come from the partisan divide that passes for enlightened debate in Carson City and Washington, D.C. But it feels as though we’re lacking enlightenment and debate
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ForeclosuresUnited we stand?
Thursday, June 26, 2008 The young couple stands in their Summerlin driveway, an impromptu yard sale illustrating their plight. They need cash. Their house, once the symbol of a personal dream, is now a burden.
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EconomyOil’s not well
Thursday, June 12, 2008 Sales are down. Tips are off. Work is disappearing. The national unemployment rate climbed to 5.5 percent from 5 percent in May, the largest jump in 22 years, with the loss of 49,000 jobs. Longtime Nevadans/immigrants; men/women; young/old—it doesn’t matter. Many sense something is wrong.
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Crime
Desert Divide
Thursday, June 5, 2008 The 20-year-old woman walked into Rick Aco’s restaurant, a sad look covering her face. It had been almost two weeks since Zulma Yessenia-Pena lost her boyfriend to an apparent gang shooting, leaving the young woman to raise the couple’s three-year-old daughter. Las Vegas police had not found the killer.
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Economy
Show them the money
Thursday, May 29, 2008 There’s always the Duke with his sing-song voice, the miles of attitude that stretched from mesa to mesa and that athletic swagger. Surrounded by marauding Indians or searching for his kidnapped niece, the Duke remained the Western idyll of the self-reliant settler. John Wayne didn’t need no stinkin’ help.
