June 2023

EDITOR'S NOTE

‘Show me the Monet’ and other lawmaker antics

As the 2023 Legislature winds down, I’m reminded of the 1997 session, which I covered as a reporter for the Reno Gazette-Journal

It was a year of belt-tightening. Lawmakers spent a lot of time lamenting the hard decisions they had to make as they decimated state budgets. Education, health care, social services and other things essential to Nevada’s well-being were on the chopping block. Some witnesses in hearings wept as they described the consequences of such frugality.

Assemblymen and senators felt their pain, but gosh, they had to be fiscally responsible.

Then, in the final days of the session, Las Vegas casino mogul Steve Wynn came to Carson City to explain his plan to buy fine art to be displayed at his new Bellagio hotel-casino. Pablo Picasso, Paul Gauguin, Vincent Van Gogh, Pierre Renoir and Claude Monet were mentioned. There was talk of a tax break. Magically, a bill passed to make that happen.

Lawmakers who were swift to cut mental-health care, rural hospitals and education budgets lined up on both sides of the aisle to support the measure. It was a matter of tourism and culture, after all.

Since then, proposals for a stadium, corporate welfare for tech firms and other shiny objects have materialized during the waning days of the Legislature, again and again mesmerizing lawmakers. This session, Hollywood has its hand out, as columnist Shelia Leslie reports on our pages.

This year, though, the politicians haven’t been totally sidetracked by such last-minute giveaways. The governor and legislators continued to work on a measure aimed at increasing educators’ pay (also the topic of a story in this edition) as the session approached its final gavel.

That may be a sign important issues are finally getting the same 11th-hour attention lawmakers in the past have showered on Monet and movie stars.

—FRANK X. MULLEN frankm@renonr.com

LETTERS

What lies beneath Tahoe

The article about Pyramid/Tahoe tall tales (RN&R, May 2023) needs some upgrading.

Tahoe has significant issues with introduced species, including “crawdads,” which are a huge problem on the south shore. The native cutthroat trout were extirpated from the lake in part due to predation by the big “Macs.” The coldest sustained temperature at depth in the lake is 41 degrees.

The trees in Fallen Leaf Lake and Emerald Bay/Tallac are the result of historical fluctuating water levels, due to ice dams, glacial activity and long droughts. Logging has no connection to the submerged trees or stumps. Lakeside landslides have not raised the level of the lake in any measurable sense, though one was of epic proportions some 8,000 years ago.

The 3-D video Tahoe in Depth at the Tahoe Science Center (Incline Village) explains these and many other phenomena in an entertaining 15 minutes.

Steve K. Reno

Green-washing lithium

In response to Jay Fisher’s letter (RN&R, May 2023): The question is not about

whether we “need” lithium or not. It’s about: How much lithium do we actually “need” versus how much the green capitalists like Elon Musk tell you we need?

A report from the Climate and Community Project, along with the University of California, Davis, estimates that if we continue to produce electric cars at the current rate, the U.S. alone will need three times the current global production of lithium by 2050. This is not only a short-term, unsustainable solution; it’s purely the result of corporate green-washing campaigns whose only goal is to sell more cars under the banner of “saving the planet.” That report found that by improving mobility in urban centers, reducing EV battery sizes and creating a robust recycling infrastructure, we could reduce our “need” for lithium by 92% and still meet carbon-emission-reduction goals. There are real, long-term solutions that we can do today instead of destroying sacred lands and important ecosystems. Choose sustainable solutions, not green capitalism.

Jonathon McNeill Reno

Protect the nation’s wild horses

Thanks to Terri Farley for writing, and the newspaper for publishing, her column on wild

horses (RN&R, April 2023). Unfortunately the truth gets ignored, and the mustangs suffer the consequences of human greed!

Putting cameras on the helicopters, at the trap sites and inside the trailers is possible and inexpensive. But they can’t show what happens: It would be too traumatic for Americans to see, and the outrage would come at them like wildfire. It’s heartbreaking and frustrating, and makes me so angry! I pray they get someone in there who will be transparent and make changes.

Christy Montaro Lake View Terrace, Calif.

Immigrant children exploited

A recent U.S. House hearing revealed that immigrant children are being handed over to guardians with little to no follow-up ensuring that those guardians have the best interest of the child in mind. Many are being recruited in their home country, with systems set up to receive them on this side of the border to be put to work—often involving sex work. Democrats on the panel complained that there were often insufficient resources, funding and legal authority to do that follow-up. This cannot be the case for the richest country this planet has ever known.

Mike Rottmann Reno

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GUEST COMMENT

BY CALE CHRISTI

Greed, not green, is the driving force behind the Thacker Pass mine on sacred ground

Contrary to an opinion expressed by some proponents of the Thacker Pass lithium mine, a place doesn’t need to be a tourist destination in order to be worth protecting.

Land itself has inherent value, and when people live in relationship with land over millennia, such a place is considered sacred. The people need the land, and the land needs the people. In this case, I’m talking about the Paiute, Shoshone and Bannock people who have lived near Thacker Pass (a place they call Peehee Mu’huh) since time immemorial.

Peehee Mu’huh translates to “rotten moon.” The place now called Thacker Pass was given this name after a band of ancestors were massacred there by the U.S. Calvary in 1865. The hunters were away, and when they returned, they found elders, women and children murdered, unburied, with their intestines spread across the sagebrush. Those who survived the massacre—and the 158 years that followed—now face another existential threat.

There is currently a push to convert the world’s energy to electric sources. Wellmeaning people think that this will save the environment. On the contrary, this push gives global capitalists like Lithium Americas the opportunity to re-colonize the planet in search of the necessary minerals to power such a transition. Switching to electric has everything to do with making money.

“Sacrifice zones” are the result. The argument often goes, “In order to protect the environment, we have to switch to electric. We know mining isn’t great, but we need lithium to make batteries work. We’ll find places to mine that no one cares

about.” People talk about Thacker Pass as if it is such a place; it is not. The Paiute, Shoshone and Bannock descendants would suffer the consequences of this mine.

Their ancestors’ bones would be torn from their resting places, and their drinking water would be depleted and poisoned. We Americans have become so disconnected from ourselves and our relationship with the planet that we no longer recognize our well-being is tied to the land as well.

For decades, we have known the environmental impact of fossil fuels. Our addiction is not to any specific energy source, but to energy itself. We call it power, and we require a constant supply. There is no source of energy available to us without a cost, and if we are unable to produce energy to power our standard of living without destroying the planet, then we might consider that the path we are on can only lead to our own destruction.

What do we really need? What adds value to our lives? In my experience, our needs are not material. Rather, I find that we have a need for family, friends and community, as well as food, water and shelter—all of which can be attained without destruction of land. Humanity needs to pause, remember what is important, and work to restore reciprocal relationships between ourselves, the land and life on this planet.

Cale Christi is a supporter of People of Red Mountain (Atsa Koodakuh wyh Nuwu), a committee of traditional knowledge-keepers and descendants of the Fort McDermitt Paiute, Shoshone and Bannock tribes who are working to oppose the proposed Thacker Pass lithium mine on their ancestral homelands and to protect Peehee Mu’huh (Thacker Pass).

STREETALK

How can gun violence be stopped?

BY DAVID ROBERT

Asked at Las Brisas Pavilion, 5020 Las Brisas Blvd., Reno

Maddie Berrien Marketing management major

I come from a gun-friendly family in a small Northern California town, so there is a lot of gun culture there— guns for hunting and home protection. I don’t personally own a gun; it’s not necessary. I think there should be regulations on semi-automatic guns, and they should be heavily regulated by background checks. There is a difference between having a gun for hunting game and sports, and guns used for mass destruction.

Taylor Hines

HVAC work

Mental-health issues should be addressed early and often. Kids are being sucked into today’s technology online. There are so-called online communities, and often, it’s not really a community; rather, it’s self-isolation, and it’s desensitizing. When the mind doesn’t have a real community to engage with, it goes to a “final solution” stage, and does something possibly bad to get recognition. Society glorifies celebrity.

Alice Hafer Writer

It would be good to have some laws about open-carry. In the other countries that I’ve lived in, like the United Kingdom, there isn’t really that much gun violence. People aren’t afraid of gun violence like we are here in the U.S. It’s something that our children should not be afraid of.

Mohammed Sultan Sales

Make it so that only the right people have access to guns. (The laws can’t be) too strict, because people will then complain about their freedom and their rights to have arms, but if the laws are too loose, then anybody can have access to guns. There needs to be some kind of happy medium. There is also the issue of mental and emotional health. People can get angry and go out and shoot. Better access to therapy is needed.

Sara Cardoza-Orellana Illustrator/writer

There need to be restrictions on purchases, and the intent and purpose of a sale. More background checks—not only for mental illness, but for criminal histories that may be an indication of possible future gun violence—(are needed). There should be more comprehensive countrywide laws on guns. Laws vary from state to state.

| BY SHEILA LESLIE LEFT FOOT FORWARD

The Legislature is prioritizing big business over children

It’s never enough. And it will never be enough. No matter how many billions of dollars we give away to wealthy corporations, they just keep begging for more. Maybe that’s why they return to the Nevada Legislature every session with their hands out; no other state is quite as eager to keep subsidizing the shareholders of private corporations with taxpayer funds, all in the name of jobs and so-called economic prosperity that results in more wealth for the already-rich, leaving the rest of us to grapple with high rents, underfunded schools and a mental-health safety net so porous that our children fall right through it.

It’s hard not to turn away in disgust.

In a recurring nightmare, “long-in-theworks” corporate welfare bills are secretly negotiated and don’t materialize until the last weeks of the legislative session, leaving little time for citizens to object or organize in opposition.

This year, it’s the Oakland Athletics looking for as much money as they can get for the privilege of relocating to Las Vegas. And three weeks out from sine die, it’s Sony Pictures, promising jobs and movie studios

for the mere price of $190 million a year for the next 20 years—which would be the largest package of legalized graft in Nevada’s history. But, hey, we’ll get a movie studio out of it, maybe, and what could be more glamourous or irresistible?

While other states are paring back their tax gifts to corporations after multiple independent studies reached the same conclusion—that economic benefits are oversold, and the return on investment just isn’t there—Nevada is full steam ahead, and promoters disparage anyone who questions their motives or their lack of any evidence that this is sensible economic policy.

Consider the comments from the director of the Governor’s Office of Economic Development (GOED) at a recent legislative hearing on a bill from Sen. Dina Neal, D-North Las Vegas, who wanted more transparency on giveaways, and limits on what an executivebranch agency can award with no legislative oversight.

Offended economic development officials claimed even “having this hearing has devastating and dire consequences,” because businesses will think Nevada’s wallet is no

longer open. GOED director Tom Burns told legislators, “The thought that companies will come to Nevada anyway without incentives is kind of mystical, unsubstantiated, reckless and, frankly, wrong.” Naturally, he offered not one bit of evidence to support his statement.

Mike Kazmierski, from the Economic Development Authority of Western Nevada (EDAWN), was equally outraged that the Legislature would dare to interfere with the state’s big-business largesse. His passion is quarreling with those who see the tax breaks as corporate welfare, parsing his argument this way: “The reality is we’re just not taxing them on something they wouldn’t be taxed on in just about any other state. … For every dollar we don’t take away from them—and again, it’s not giving, it’s just not taking away from them— our revenue at the state goes up $3.”

But not taking our tax abatements away is indeed giving them hard cash. Not taking away equates to giving, except apparently in economic-development fantasyland.

A handful of Democratic legislators pushed back in more straightforward language. Assemblywoman Shondra SummersArmstrong, D-Las Vegas, captured the

thoughts of many Reno residents, reasonably asking, “How do we balance rampant homelessness, mental-health issues (and) schools that are falling apart all over the state, but we can hold up and say we have a fabulous advanced manufacturing facility at the end of a road that isn’t big enough to even handle the traffic that is going out there every day?”

And remember, this debate was just on Neal’s transparency bill. As I write this column in mid-May, it’s unclear how much of our money won’t be taken away from the A’s or Sony Pictures. Whatever level of corporate welfare the Legislature decides to award these businesses, you can be sure others will be lining up for their own handouts next session. Once you swallow the argument by economicdevelopment officials that this is the only way for Nevada to thrive, there truly is no end to the madness of subsidizing big business year after year, while Nevada’s families struggle with crumbling schools, skyrocketing housing costs and a children’s mental-health system that ranks 51st in the nation.

Nevada’s budget reflects our priorities. Too bad sports teams, movie studios and battery factories increasingly trump our kids.

A NOTE FROM THE PUBLISHER

How a summer internship 27 years ago changed my life

I was quite nervous when I first walked into the bottom floor of an office building on West First Street, 27 years ago this month.

I was home for the summer, between my junior and senior years of college.

Dale Maharidge, my journalism adviser at Stanford University, had connected me with R.V. Scheide, an acquaintance of his from when they were both reporters in Sacramento, to set up a summer internship. R.V. had been sent to Reno about 16 months prior to take the editorial reins of the brandnew Reno News & Review, after the thennew owners had taken over what had been Nevada Weekly.

I had no idea what to expect; I’d never been in a newsroom before (not counting my college newspaper). But I certainly wasn’t expecting the small, cluttered space where I met R.V. (who was getting ready to return to Sacramento), incoming editor Erik Espe, arts editor D. Brian Burghart, staff writers Heidi Hart and Brad Summerhill, and my fellow summer intern, Sheryl Kleinendorst. I was in awe the first time I met Dennis Myers (then an RN&R contributor, and later the longtime news editor), someone whose

reports I’d grown up watching on TV news.

My first-ever story for the RN&R—and for any newspaper other than my college daily— was a preview of a brand-new arts festival.

“It’s being billed as the largest arts festival in Reno’s history,” was my lede. “Reno will be besieged by all types of artists for ‘Uptown, Downtown, Artown,’ Reno’s summer arts festival.” Today, of course, that festival is simply known as Artown.

That summer, I experienced sides of Reno I’d never seen before.

Sheryl and I often zipped around town in her pickup, doing Streetalk and helping each other out with our stories. She was the one who introduced me to sushi, at the now-long-gone Sushi Club. Brian introduced me to Golden Flower, and later Bangkok Cuisine (which opened that year)— the first times I ever ate Vietnamese and Thai food, respectively.

That summer was exhausting—I was working

other jobs in addition to the unpaid RN&R internship, because I needed to save for college— but I was also having the time of my life.

That internship wound up paving a career path I had no idea I’d take. My goal had always been to work in the sports department at a large metro daily. My first journalism job after college was as a newsman in The Associated Press’ San Francisco bureau, and I was well on my way toward that goal. I was originally hired by the AP for what amounted to a 20-week tryout, and I did well enough to be offered a permanent position, but I declined it, because I felt the need to return to Reno for personal reasons.

My second journalism job after college? As a temporary staff writer at the RN&R. I filled a two-month gap between one writer leaving, and another writer starting. I then went to the Daily Sparks Tribune for a year and a half before returning to the

| BY JIMMY BOEGLE

After less than six months, in January 2000, I was named the editor of the RN&R—a job I probably wasn’t quite ready for—a month shy of my 25th birthday.

In October 2001, I left the RN&R for good (or so I thought)—but I didn’t leave alternative papers. I went to Las Vegas CityLife (one of the country’s most underrated alternative weeklies, one that died way earlier than it should’ve, due to corporate neglect) before moving on to the Tucson Weekly for a decade. In 2013, my now-husband and I moved to Palm Springs to start the Coachella Valley Independent. After stepping in to help revive the RN&R a year and a half ago, we’re now splitting time between Palm Springs and Reno.

Next month, I plan to attend the Association of Alternative Newsmedia’s annual conference in Dallas. I’ve been on the AAN board for nearly a decade (in two different stints), and at the conference, I am likely to be voted in as AAN’s board president.

None of this would have happened if my college adviser hadn’t helped me get a summer internship at my fledgling hometown alternative weekly 27 years ago. The universe

“I was in awe the first time I met Dennis Myers (then an RN&R contributor, and later the longtime news editor), someone whose reports I’d grown up watching on TV news.”

| BY DICK BARTHOLET

Saluting winners, finalists in the Sontag Entrepreneurship Competition

The Sontag Entrepreneurship Competition started in 2012, with the $50,000 prize awarded annually, coming from an endowment funded by Rick Sontag, an alumnus of the University of Nevada, Reno, who achieved financial success as an entrepreneur.

To get started in his first business venture, Sontag needed to raise $50,000, and this proved challenging. This experience “set the target” for the amount of the annual award, as well as the donation required to fund an endowment that could provide an annual $50,000 award into perpetuity.

“The most important thing about investing in the next generation of entrepreneurs on the University of Nevada, Reno, campus is that it’s the way of building the next generation of leaders for our country,” Sontag said in 2021.

In 2023, we reached out to some individuals who previously were finalists in the Sontag Entrepreneurship Competition. One told us: “The Sontag Competition reflects a great culture of opportunity and philanthropy that is unique to UNR that I have not seen at other institutions. Participation in the competition reinforced these ideas, facilitating my achievements with graduation from the school of nursing, and post-graduation, service to the community as a critical care nurse at Renown. I have not pursued a degree in business, (and) instead have obtained my (medical doctorate) and am currently training as a cardio thoracic surgery resident.”

Another said: “My participation in the Sontag competition was the single-most rewarding and enriching experience I had as a student at the University of Nevada, Reno. What started out as a class project with friends turned into a passion and a tangible business, and Sontag helped us lay that foundation. It forced our group to address the needs of the company and legitimize our ideas until we had something we were proud to present. Besides working on the business side of things, we also got a great lesson in public presentations.

These skills are invaluable to me today.”

The Sontag Award ($50,000) and the Dragonfly Energy Innovation Award ($10,000) are wonderful, and we are so appreciative of Rick Sontag and Dragonfly Energy for their generous financial support. However, in my opinion, the highest value of these awards is that they provide the “bright shiny objects” that cause students to self-select to enter the competition, to invest huge amounts of time and energy, and to come away from the experience with skills, perspectives and ways of thinking that they might not otherwise have—skills that help them be effective leaders.

The Dragonfly Energy founders competed in Sontag in 2014, but did not win. However, subsequent to the competition, they launched a Reno-based company manufacturing lithium iron-phosphate batteries and doing cutting-edge battery research, and the employ around 170 people. The founders of Dragonfly Energy valued the Sontag experience and have provided the $10,000 Dragonfly Energy Innovation Award annually since 2021.

A total of 26 teams submitted an intent to compete in the 2023 Sontag Entrepreneurship Competition, comprised of 41 students representing 16 different majors from five different schools/colleges within UNR.

There were four stages in the competition prior to the Sontag finals, during which 20 judges/coaches evaluated and provided feedback to the teams, sharing the wisdom from their experiences. The Ozmen Center for Entrepreneurship has an overriding criterium for engaging community volunteers to judge and coach these teams: We want people who have personally experienced the entrepreneurial journey.

Finalist teams that did not win cash awards included:

Adventure Provisions: Adventure Provisions is a company that seeks to deliver high-quality dehydrated meals that cater to a wide range of dietary restrictions (like vegan/gluten-free, etc.). The current product lineup includes five different

meals. Each product is ready for consumption after only a few minutes in hot water. The current target markets include individuals with an interest in outdoor recreation, as well as other markets for “ready to eat” nutritious meals. Founder: Sierra Hixson, behavioral psychology.

Sierra Hixon possesses a very important trait that isn’t evaluated in the Sontag Entrepreneurship Competition—perseverance!

Robo Spect: The Automated Robotic System for Bridge Inspection is a product developed to aid or replace the human aspect in ordinary bridge inspections. It is being marketed as a lessexpensive, faster and more-effective alternative to either human labor or other existing robotic systems used for bridge inspection. This system is able to handle complex structures through its use of advanced sensors and unique designs of the units themselves. Founders: Son Nguyen, doctoral candidate in computer science and engineering/robotics, and Stephen Lencioni, School of Medicine.

Son Nguyen has a little more work to do to get to a commercial-ready version of his equipment and software, but he definitely has some extraordinary technology.

Trellis: Trellis is creating an employeetraining software that seeks to effectively instill cognitive thinking and reasoning skills that are important in maintaining a safe/secure workplace environment. The program puts the user through a gauntlet of situations where they are given varying levels of information and then asked to either find a solution to the problem, or identify that they do not have enough information to properly proceed. The initial primary market identified by Patrick Smith and his team was workplace safety. Founder: Patrick Smith, doctoral candidate, psychology.

The potential applications for this technology are vast. Next steps will involve commercial validation of the technology in specific applications.

The Dragonfly Energy Innovation Award Winner: TRYBE Summits, an outdoor team-

bonding/training company that was created to instill a sense of community among people through the use of stressful situations that build mental and physical fortitude while teaching the importance of collaboration between peers. The main customer base for TRYBE Summits is business teams in the Nevada/California area, with the secondary customer bases being CEOs/executives and other high-performance individuals (police, fire depts, medical staff, etc.). TRYBE Summits utilizes a highly trained team of individuals from varying backgrounds to bring the most authentic and effective experience possible. Founder: Keaton Lynn, MBA.

Keaton Lynn has a passion for this business that was completely obvious to everyone who saw his final presentation.

And finally, the Sontag Award Winner: Mimirs Well-Ness. The Neonatal Femoral Protector is a product designed to lower the chance of injury or death during circumcision through its appliance. The Neonatal Femoral Protector protects the otherwise-unprotected vital organs and arteries near the surgical site of a circumcision. It is being marketed as a highvalue, relatively inexpensive safety device to medical practices, potentially across the world.

Founder: Bridget Martinez, MD, Ph.D. in endocrinology, Ph.D candidate in Basque studies.

Dr. Martinez is representative of the students who compete in the Sontag Entrepreneurship Competition. Typical competitors are working full-time, going to school as full-time students, have family obligations—and, on the side, are creating a new businesses. One has to wonder how they do so much. In addition to being a medical doctor, Dr. Martinez has a Ph.D. in endocrinology. Because she was here in Reno, and the program looked interesting, Dr. Martinez is working on her doctorate in Basque studies.

Dick Bartholet is the director of the Sontag Entrepreneurship Competition.

UPFRONT Drag queen story time returns to Washoe libraries

Drag Story Hour, a program popular at libraries across the country, is back at Washoe County libraries this summer.

The events are scheduled on:

• Thursday, June 15, from 10 a.m. to noon at the Downtown Reno Library

• Saturday, June 17, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the North Valleys Library

• Saturday, July 15, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the Sparks Library.

The reader at all three will be Miss Ginger Devine, who was voted Best Drag Queen in the 2015 Reno News & Review readers’ poll.

At story time, men dressed in exaggerated, stereotypical feminine clothes and makeup read children’s books to children and their parents. The program has been a hit in Washoe County, but it’s also a lightning rod in the culture wars. In late February, opponents of the event, spurred on by Washoe County Republican Party leaders, attended a Washoe County Commission meeting to demand the story times be discontinued.

Opponents argue that such events are inappropriate for children. Advocates of the story times note that parents decide what is and is not appropriate for their own children. Parents accompany their kids to the events.

The stories read are chosen from a library-approved list. The event is paid for by the nonprofit Friends of the Washoe County Library, and no tax money is involved.

Our Center, which provides Northern Nevada’s LGBTQ+ community with access to advocacy, support, educational programs, services and resources, will be coordinating volunteers to attend each of the events. The Washoe County libraries and Our Center, a spokeswoman said, will be producing “rainbow festivals” at each of the readings “to further support the joyful work that drag performers contribute to youth.”

Volunteers will receive conflict intervention and de-escalation training before their involvement at each of the readings in order to help keep the events safe.

Our Center welcomes more volunteers; more information can be found at ourcenterreno.org.

—Frank X. Mullen

Investment debacle

Clients fear millions are at risk; Hughes Private Capital’s financial statements were ‘disconnected from reality’

The bankruptcy of one of the largest funds at a Reno-based real estate investment firm has left hundreds of local and national clients— some of whom risked millions—worried about their investments, which were touted as delivering “double-digit returns” while being as safe “as a savings account.”

The company, Hughes Private Capital (HPC), advertised heavily on Reno talk radio and in other media for more than a decade and hosted investment seminars at local venues and online. The firm used investors’ money to buy distressed properties, rehabilitate them and then resell or rent them out, generating profits for members of

its funds.

One of HPC’s major funds is now in bankruptcy proceedings, and others are underwater, records show. The hundreds of fund investors include a multitude of family trusts in Nevada and other states—including folks who put their nest eggs into the investments, and seniors who used their dividends to pay for living expenses, including long-term residential care.

Some of the firm’s investors have filed complaints with the Nevada Securities Division, which in 2014 levied a $25,000 fine against Hughes Private Capital for not registering its funds with the state. The Securities Division won’t confirm or deny the existence of current

FRANK X. MULLEN

Tim Walker of Reno holds a photo of his mother, Berniece Walker, 95. Tim Walker had been using dividends from a $670,000 investment in a real estate fund to pay for her long-term care, but his account and hundreds of others managed by Reno-based Hughes Private Capital are frozen after a related investment fund entered bankruptcy proceedings.

investigations, but it is required to investigate all complaints. Several investors interviewed by the RN&R said they recently filed complaints and subsequently were asked to provide documents related to their investments. The Securities Division can pursue both civil and criminal investigations.

In March, three investors in Wyoming filed a lawsuit against HPC. That suit, which alleges financial fraud and other illegalities, is on hold while the Chapter 11 reorganization of one of its funds, called Guardian, proceeds. The bankruptcy petition for that fund lists more than 500 unsecured creditors, including a Sparks church that invested $1.1 million in the fund, and a Washoe County family trust that put $5.2 million into the investment.

Hughes Private Capital advertised its various funds as having projected returns of 7-14% monthly. Dividends were paid regularly, some investors said, until late last year. In December, the firm closed the Guardian Fund to come up with a “stabilization plan.” Another fund, called Vista, also shut down.

Several companies operated under the HPC umbrella. Investors, not HPC, owned the funds, but members had no voting rights; the firm’s management made the financial decisions. Properties were bought and sold; loans were made; and contracts were signed among business entities owned or controlled by HPC. The same entities, bankruptcy managers told investors in April, were “signing both sides of the contract.”

Everything investors thought they knew about the company came from the firm’s marketing materials and the financial statements they received from the company. At the April meeting, bankruptcy managers said HPC’s financial statements were never audited and wildly inaccurate, and that the values of some of the properties it sold to investors were apparently inflated. Some assets on Guardian’s books, they told investors, are worth millions less than their listed values.

In March, three Guardian Fund investors filed suit in Reno against HPC, its owners and related entities. That complaint alleges securities fraud and other improprieties. The allegations are similar to the complaints made in a Texas investor’s lawsuit against the firm in 2020, which was

Photo/David Robert

settled out of court the following year.

In a sworn deposition in the Texas case, obtained by the RN&R, one of HPC’s owners admitted the company used new investors’ money to pay dividends to existing investors, because another fund (called Assuravest LLC) failed to generate profits. In a subsequent deposition, a tax accountant described that process of using investors’ money to pay dividends to other investors as “analogous” to a Ponzi scheme.

In communications with clients, the company’s principals described HPC’s problems as the result of Guardian’s bankruptcy, which crippled its plan to purchase and rehabilitate 184 properties and service loans borrowed from its own Guardian and Vista funds.

HPC owners Gregory Hughes and Steve Sixberry, in an email to Guardian clients in December, blamed the firm’s woes on “economic volatility” compounded by the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on tenants’ ability to pay rents. In an April email to investors of the Vista Fund, Hughes wrote that Vista had $7 million in its capital account, “leaving a $3.79 million impairment,” and that the accounts in that fund would be “adjusted” to 45.8% of their value.

Hughes and Sixberry did not return email and voice mail messages from the RN&R requesting comment.

Guardian and Vista investors interviewed by the RN&R said the funds’ collapse was unexpected and devastating. Some investors said they had their entire retirement accounts or the bulk of their family trusts tied up in investments that they believed were relatively safe.

Hughes, a Reno native, created Hughes Private Capital LLC in 2009, according to the Nevada Secretary of State. Archives available on the Wayback Machine site have images of the firm’s website beginning in 2010. On that page, Gregory Hughes made a pitch for HPC’s investments and cited opportunities created in the wake of the Great Recession, which was triggered by the housing crash in 2007.

“Our investors are currently capitalizing on a

window of opportunity that was opened by the bubble bursting in the housing market,” Gregory Hughes wrote in December 2010. “They are enjoying a handsome yield as a result of investing with Hughes Private Capital.”

Hughes explained the firm’s Real Estate Investment Fund buys and sells real estate assets for members that are “distressed residential properties,” fixes them up and then resells them “as quickly as possible.” In addition, he wrote, the company locates and purchases real estate for investors and provides property-management services. “It is possible for you to make money and never have to visit your own property,” Hughes wrote.

Since then, the archives show, Hughes Private Capital has offered a variety of funds in which investors owned real estate and shared in the revenue from rents, doled out in monthly dividends. Clients were encouraged to invest money from their retirement accounts. Other investors also bought specific properties from HPC, which managed rentals for them.

Although disclaimers on HPC’s website warn that no investment is completely safe, screen grabs of the site from 2014 to 2016 touted “double-digit returns with the safety of a savings account,” funds designed to “protect your investment so you make money in any economy,” and funds that are “a trusted alternative for investors who enjoy high profits and low risk.”

Such private-investment schemes have been popular for decades and often are exempt from the stricter federal regulations covering other types of securities and public companies. After paying the state fine in 2014, HPC applied for and received exemptions for its funds from the Securities and Exchange Commission, records show, and filed the required paperwork with the Nevada Secretary of State.

In April, bankruptcy managers told investors that because HPC’s officers were involved in every aspect of the various funds, management companies and financial transactions, “there were a lot of conflicting interests.”

Investor: fall of a ‘house of cards’

The company’s website documents the company’s exponential growth during the last decade.

In 2014, the website noted the company managed 117 properties and had $10.9 million in assets under management. Two years later, the firm boasted 167 properties and $16.7 million in assets, and in 2018, advertised $270 million in assets and “2,400 doors” in its real estate portfolio.

In 2019, HPC acquired Reno-based Krch Realty; owner Kyle Krch joined Hughes and Sixberry as managers of the firm.

In 2015, an investigation by the Nevada Real Estate Commission concluded Krch violated the law multiple times while engaging in several short-sale transactions. The commission fined Krch $102,000 plus $10,128.67 in commission costs for 39 violations, a ruling that was affirmed by the Nevada Court of Appeals in 2017. Krch could not be reached for comment.

The websites of both HPC and Krch Realty are now inactive.

Tim Walker, who owns a Reno carpet-cleaning firm, started investing his mother’s retirement nest egg in HPC’s Vista Fund five years ago. He made an initial investment of $45,000, which he increased to $617,000 in 2021 after the firm made good on its projected return of 8% per month. By February of this year, when dividends ceased, the account had grown to $671,000, according to HPC’s financial statements. He had used the monthly distributions to help pay for his 95-year-old mother’s stay at an assisted-living facility in Fresno, Calif.

“(Vista Fund) was paying 8 percent, which was cut down to 6% in November, because they said people were not paying rent,” Walker explained. “Then they stopped paying altogether in February.”

On April 7, HPC notified him that dividends were suspended, because the closing of the Guardian Fund also hobbled the Vista Fund, which is still managed by HPC. Although the firm has a plan to restructure its operations, Walker is uncertain how much of the account’s principal, if any, he may be able to recover.

“It’s a pretty screwed-up deal,” Walker said. “I may have to sell my house to keep a roof over my mom’s head. Her cost of her care has tripled in the last three months to more than $10,000 per month.”

Walker said he got interested in HPC after friends had invested in its funds and were getting regular dividends. He heard radio ads for the firm and attended one of the company’s investment meetings at ArrowCreek in Reno. He understood HPC’s process, he said, and knew such funds are a legitimate way to make money by investing in real estate.

“Now the whole house of cards is coming down,” Walker said. “I really don’t think there’s a snowball’s chance in hell that my mom is ever going to get any money back. The Vista Fund

now adjusted down to 45% of its current value. They lost 55% of the fund.”

Walker has started a GoFundMe account for his mom, called Help Berniece Walker, hoping to keep her in assisted living for a few months while he figures out how to pay for her care going forward.

‘Never audited, never could be’

After the Guardian Fund was closed in October and put in a “stabilization” period in December that could take up to two years, some Guardian investors in March forced the fund into involuntary Chapter 7 bankruptcy. That process involves liquidation of assets and distribution of the proceeds to creditors. The fund then voluntarily declared Chapter 11 bankruptcy (reorganization) about three weeks later. Bankruptcy managers have said the Chapter 11 process will likely prevail.

During a meeting with investors in April, bankruptcy manager Aaron Noe promised to go after all available assets to recover as much money as possible for Guardian investors.

In the Zoom presentation on April 19, Andrew Palmer, who is working on the fund’s reorganization, explained that the Guardian Fund, “was never audited, and quite frankly, never could have been audited,” because financial records didn’t adhere to generally accepted accounting principles. The fund’s financial statements, he noted, “were disconnected from reality.” HPC’s accounting team, he said, “didn’t have the experience and the training” to produce accurate statements.

Wendell King, a Reno certified public accountant who also is an investor in the fund, is on the new accounting team, which Noe said is busy “cleaning up the books.” King told investors that some of the properties involved in the funds were “recorded in excess of their true values. … This won’t be good news (to investors), but we’re telling you what you need to know.”

King cited the example of four properties that were valued at a total of $24 million, but bankruptcy managers only expect to recover slightly less than $13 million. In that case, he said, “we will be recording a write-off of $11 million, but that doesn’t mean we won’t be pursuing any assets that we can have a claim to.”

The Guardian Fund’s bankruptcy petition lists more than 500 creditors and investors. The top 20 unsecured investors alone had more than $22.5 million in the fund. Of those, 10 are from Northern Nevada, and one is from Las Vegas. The largest creditor, with $5.2 invested in Guardian, is a family trust based in Washoe County. Other Nevada investors among the top 20 creditors had from $640,000 to $1.58 million in their accounts, including a Sparks church, which invested $1.1 million.

The church’s pastor did not return calls from continued on next page

A screenshot of Hughes Private Capital’s webpage circa 2011, from the Wayback Machine.

the RN&R requesting comment.

Gregory Hughes told investors in April that HPC’s other investment funds also would no longer be paying dividends and that he plans to file Chapter 11 bankruptcy for the firm itself. As of May 21, no petition had been filed.

The investors listed in Guardian’s bankruptcy documents hail from across the country, with many from Northern Nevada, Colorado, Texas and the Pacific Coast.

Chuck Earle, of Bellingham, Wash., bought property from Hughes Private Capital in August of last year. Unlike the fund members whose money is pooled to buy real estate, he owns a specific property in Missouri that was managed by HPC, meaning he is among the “secured” HPC investors.

He later found out that the house he bought for $205,000 had been purchased by Hughes for $105,000. “They did a little work on it, but they boosted the value by $100,000 when they sold it to me,” he said. “They were to manage the property and pay 7% to me monthly, $1,046.”

That dividend was paid in September, October and November, he said, “and in December, they quit paying with no warning.

I got the letter Dec. 7. … I’d like to know if money was comingled between funds.”

Earle first heard of HPC when it advertised in the Seattle market. He researched the firm online and didn’t come up with any negative information, he said. The high rate of return was a major attraction, he said, as was the firm’s promise of a written 2-year buyback guarantee, signed by Greg Hughes. Earle is now asking the same question as other HPC investors: “There were millions of dollars in these funds. Where did it go?”

The first time Hughes Private Capital shows up in the federal lawsuit data bank is March 2020, when Victoire Van Der Pas, an investor in Austin, Texas, filed suit against

HPC, Hughes, Sixberry and a fund called Assuravest. Van Der Pas invested $100,000 in that fund in 2016, she said, and based on the representation by Hughes, she expected that the investment would be profitable with a limited downside. In 2018, her lawsuit alleges, the fund reported “a significant and unexplained loss.” She also alleged that HPC misrepresented other actions involving the fund, and that the profits reported to the investors in a monthly newsletter “could not be located in any of the financial statements” provided to her.

The suit alleged that Assuravest made distributions to investors—despite not having earned any income—by using money from later investors. In a sworn deposition on Jan. 22, 2021, HPC owner Steven Sixberry confirmed that between Feb. 26, 2016, and September 2017, “virtually all of $169,800 in preferred returns” (dividends) were paid out using other investors’ money.

The lawsuit was settled out of court months later. In an interview with the RN&R in May, Van Der Pas said she recouped most of her investment and attorney fees. “(HPC) had made my life miserable,” she said. “I’m still mad as hell.”

Another suit alleges fraud

On March 29, three investors in the Guardian Fund filed suit in federal court in Reno against the fund, HPC, Sixberry, Hughes and others. The complaint alleges securities fraud, misrepresentation, breach of contract and fiduciary duty, unjust enrichment and civil conspiracy.

The three plaintiffs were among the Guardian Fund’s “secured” investors. Under that arrangement, the fund would buy residential properties, remodel them and sell the properties to investors. The investors would then lease the properties back to the fund, which would manage them and share profits with investors.

The complaint alleges that the defendants treated the fund as if it were their private assets; that they concealed and diverted fund assets; and that they concealed corporate records from the plaintiffs, among other claims. That suit is now on hold pending the completion of Chapter 11 proceedings. Bankruptcy managers have outlined a plan restructuring the Guardian Fund. The plan is scheduled to be filed by August, with the deadline for creditor’s claims of Aug. 15.

“My role is to be the Guardian estate watchdog,” said Aaron Noe, bankruptcy manager. “My responsibility is to go after every single possible asset that is Guardian and then to minimize any expenses or claims against that estate.”

Tim Walker, who invested in the Vista Fund— which is frozen but not in bankruptcy like Guardian—is haunted by the collapse of the fund and the potential loss of his mother’s $670,000.

“I based the investments on what HPC said, and I knew real estate trusts have been around for a long time,” he said. “It seemed what they were doing was sound. … A couple years ago, I was discussing the funds with Greg Hughes, and I kind of half-kidding said, ‘It sounds like the only way this could get screwed up is if you screw up.’

“He laughed.”

Screenshots of Hughes Private Capital’s webpage from the Wayback Machine, circa 2017.

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Bike wars

The Center Street Cycle Track may yet connect UNR with Midtown

The proposed Center Street/University Way Cycle Track—derailed two years ago after casino interests and local officials suddenly pivoted to focus on a “placemaking” study of Virginia Street—may yet get back on course.

The Reno City Council in May accepted the results of a the placemaking study, which mentioned the Center Street plan just once in the 143-page report. Advocates of the Center Street route feared that the proposed project—a protected bike lane linking the University of Nevada, Reno, with Midtown—was sidelined for good. But some City Council members assured proponents that the Center Street project is still on the table.

Although some city officials favor abandoning the project, Reno Mayor Hillary Schieve and Councilwoman Naomi Duerr supported Center Street and Sierra Street as possible cycle routes. Council members Meghan Ebert, Miguel Martinez and Jenny Brekhus also said they favored a closer look at bike-route alternatives.

“We’ve looked at this (Center Street) cycle track for far too long,” Schieve said. “I want to get going on it. It’s 30% engineered. I haven’t seen anything compelling enough to me that we shouldn’t do it.”

Ky Plaskon, president of the Truckee Meadows Bicycle Alliance, said the

long-studied Center Street/University Way project is the city’s best option for a safe connection between UNR and Midtown.

“It is time the city of Reno staff lifts their opposition to this major downtown safety improvement project,” he said. “A sense of place means safety now, not years down the road. If we are going to have a safe downtown and be a bike-friendly city, the city needs to finish what it started with the Center Street Cycle Track.”

The Center Street project began after officials decided not to install bike lanes (and preserve parking spaces) on Virginia Street as part of Midtown’s redevelopment. A 2019 feasibility study by Headway Transportation concluded that: “Overall, the two‐way cycle track on Center Street offers the greatest safety and best connectivity improvement for the cost. The separation from vehicle traffic and directness of the route makes this facility the most attractive to bike riders of all abilities. It was also chosen as the best alternative by the RTC board and the Reno City Council.” The study rejected the Virginia Street alternative because it has “fatal flaws.”

The project, the result of years of deliberation and planning, was put on hold after downtown casino interests in November 2020 asked officials to reconsider the route’s effect on their properties on Virginia Street. Planners said the “pause” in the project was necessary to make sure all possible options were exam-

A bike rider cruises on the sidewalk along Virginia Street in Midtown. The cycle lanes there are within the vehicle traffic lanes, and some riders avoid using them. Photo/ David

Robert

ined, including creating bike lanes on Virginia Street. A subsequent traffic study concluded that a Virginia Street bikeway would result in gridlock downtown, because the street is narrow and would became a bottleneck with the addition of bike lanes.

Nonetheless, the city in April of last year installed a pop-up bike lane network that connected Keystone Avenue to Evans Avenue/ the University of Nevada via Fifth Street—and downtown Reno to Midtown via Virginia Street.

The Fifth Street lanes remain. The Virginia Street experiment, now dismantled, resulted in complaints from street-side businesses that experienced a downturn in revenue, and from drivers who objected to the city’s core thoroughfare being reduced to a narrow one-way street for vehicles. Even so, some city officials oppose the Center Street alternative.

Kerrie Koski, Reno’s public works director, told council members that a Center Street/ University Way route would be dangerous, because freeway ramps intersect the route. “That, to me, is potential for a disaster when you’re putting a cyclist through that intersection,” Koski said. “We have a lot of crashes in that particular area.”

Koski also has said that creating a twoway cycle lane on a one-way street would be hazardous to both cyclists and drivers. In previous studies, however, the one-way nature of the street was considered an advantage for the route.

Plaskon noted that other cities have networks of bike routes with lanes that bisect freeways—and they are made safe with traffic signals. On a recent visit to Washington, D.C., for the National Bike Summit, Plaskon said, he saw first-hand that the city’s extensive network is well-used. Studies that indicate the bikeways have markedly increased the number of residents and visitors using bikes for daily commuting, short trips and sight-seeing.

“Washington, D.C., has millions of tourists going from place to place on very busy streets, and they have two-way cycle tracks on oneway streets that work perfectly there,” Plaskon said. “They do these two-way cycle tracks all over the world. I don’t know why it’s so hard for Reno to do just one.”

The Center Street route also would require “more removal of on‐street parking than the other options,” the 2019 Headway report noted, and that’s become a sticking point for businesses on that route.

City supports cycling network

Reno officials and the Regional Transportation Commission have supported the creation of protected bike paths in the Truckee Meadows and have applied for federal grants to help pay for them.

The RTC last year applied for a $50 million grant from the federal Safe Streets and Roads for ALL program, but wasn’t among the 511 communities nationwide that got the grant awards in February. Of the awardees, 400 requested less than $1 million; the RTC’s $50 million proposal put it in the top three among community requests.

The RTC and local government officials are asking for $62.5 million from a federal grant program for street work, including downtown micromobility (improved walking, biking and transit connectivity) projects. Those potentially would include nine protected cycling routes, including Virginia Street.

Plaskon noted Reno officials link the installation of bike lanes to street-repaving projects, exponentially increasing the costs of construction and making RTC/Reno’s grant applications “so way out of line with other funding requests.”

He noted that the communities who are succeeding in getting Safe Streets grants focused on smaller projects. For example, some of the funding proposals that were awarded are for comprehensive safety action plans, he said, “something the RTC needs for our schools.”

The city built a protected bike lane and repaved Fifth Street for the pilot project in less than four months at a cost of less than $400,000, he noted. “If you look at Center Street, for example, and (the city) is looking at $4 million to install the bike path, and then they add $6 million in road improvements. That’s clearly a road project, not a bicycle project. ... They are road projects in disguise.”

City officials say they will come up with a cycling network plan in June or July.

“Whether that plan will happen or not, with these huge costs, it could take years,” Plaskon said. “If they got the massive ($62.5 million) federal grant they applying for, that could make it happen, but if they don’t, it’s really unclear whether anything would happen at all.”

Building protected cycle tracks should not have to wait for major road reconstruction projects, he said, noting that a safe route from UNR to Midtown is a basic, urgent need.

“What they are coming up with as a (bike) network plan looks pretty good,” Plaskon said. “What it’s missing is multiple university-to-Midtown routes, and that’s the really high-need area. … (Now), the students are riding everywhere; they are all over Sierra Street and Center Street/University Way, and there’s no protection on those streets. These are high-needs, dangerous roads, and the city is doing nothing but delaying.”

In search of Reno’s last pay phones

A few survive, but younger people don’t know what they’re for

Ask a passer-by on a Reno street where the nearest pay phone can be found, and they look at you like you’ve just stepped out of a time warp.

“Man, I don’t even know where one would be,” answered Samuel Vazquez, 26. “I honestly don’t think I’ve seen one ever.”

Carmine D’antona, 17, was puzzled by the query: “A what?” she asked. “I have no clue what that is.”

Jennifer DuPree, 74, knew all about pay phones, but hadn’t seen any in years.

“Maybe (there’s one) somewhere in this shopping center,” she said. There wasn’t. People younger than 40 may have only seen pay telephones or phone booths in movies and on TV. Iconic English phone booths are both Harry Potter’s portal to the Ministry of Magic and Dr. Who’s time machine. In the 1960s, an American phone booth was Agent Maxwell Smart’s underground elevator to spy headquarters, and in 1989, Bill and Ted used a phone booth to embark on their excellent adventure. These days, Bill and Ted (and Clark Kent,

BVD

A man makes a call at the RTC Fourth Street Station in Reno. Photo/David Robert

who used a booth to shed his street clothes and become Superman) would be out of luck.

Now extremely rare, pay phones once were a common—and essential—part of the nation’s landscape. No more. The proliferation of mobile phones killed them, and through their text function, smart phones may make talking on a phone obsolete as well.

Some folks remember the devices with nostalgia—but agree that smart phones are a major improvement.

“I’m glad we have (cell) technology,” said LeRai Porter, 71. “It’s so much more useful. I hadn’t grown up with technology, so I’ve seen the transition.”

Others are glad they missed a bygone age.

“I’d hate to have existed in the time without cell phones,” mused Owen Glover, 17. “I can’t imagine having to walk somewhere to call someone. That just seems annoying, but I guess it was the norm back then.”

History tells us that William Gray invented the pay phone after no one he asked would let him use their newfangled phones to call a doctor for his sick wife. The first pay phone was installed in downtown Hartford, Conn., in 1889.

In 1995, 2.6 million pay phones, operated by different companies, existed in the U.S., according to media reports. By 2018, the Federal Communications Commission estimated that fewer than 100,000 public phones still existed—including some devices that were no longer able to make calls.

A dinosaur hunt

So how many of those endangered species are left in the Truckee Meadows?

An internet search generated various lists of local phone locations, but the information is woefully outdated. One online tally of Northern Nevada pay-phone locations lists numbers with 702 area codes, which were changed to 775 in 1998. Other websites listed specific local phone locations with 775 area codes, but those, too, have long vanished.

So the RN&R embarked on a quest to find the last public phones by using old-school technology: asking people. There are three operating pay phones at the RTC Fourth Street Station, and one at RTC Centennial Plaza in Sparks. The cost of a call is 50 cents for three minutes of talk time.

Stoney Harshbarger, 66, directed a RN&R reporter to two more functioning payphones at the Atlantis. One is underneath the escalator between the Purple Parrot and the bathroom, and the other is across Virginia Street behind the escalator to the skyway.

Those six phones are owned by Pacific Te-

lemanagement Services, which operates about 25,000 pay phones across the United States. The California-based company failed to return numerous voicemail messages left by the RN&R over a period of weeks. (Maybe they like texting better.)

Some Nevadans interviewed said they didn’t think pay phones are useful in the 21st century; others disagreed.

“When I was about 14 or 15, I met a man who got off the bus and had no money to get home to New York from Colorado,” said Tristan Hunt, 19. “I met him at the bus stop everyday for a week so that he could try to contact his family with my cell phone, because payphones were no longer around.”

Pika Aviles, 28, raised the same issue that confronted the pay phone’s inventor 134 years ago: “What if you lost your phone in a place you’re not familiar with?” he asked. “You have to go asking strangers to borrow their phone. What if they all say no?”

Pay phones in transit hubs and tourist destinations cater to travelers who lack data plans or have dead cell batteries. For those who can’t afford or don’t like cell phones, public phones remain essential.

A captive clientele

Jails and prisons are among the few places pay phones can still be found.

At the Washoe County Jail, inmates use a phone system run by a third-party company, Legacy Inmate Communications. Inmates’ communications are monitored, with the exception of calls with their lawyers or that involve religion.

Inmates are granted two free calls per week. Additional calls can be made using pre-paid phone cards or by calling collect. No coins are accepted. The cost is $2.10 for a 15-minute call within Nevada.

The Truckee Meadows’ loneliest pay phone may be the relic near the main entrance of the Downtown Reno Library. It is battered and broken; its wires are severed, and only half of its handset remains. Its dial tone has been silent for nearly a year. That phone previously was used by unhoused people who lacked cell phones, library staff members said.

“The phone has been broken since last summer,” explained Kristen Ryan, managing librarian at the Downtown Reno Library. “We made multiple attempts during the summer and fall to get it repaired.” But she said the voice mailbox for Pacific Telemanagement Services was always full, and librarians were unable to leave messages.

Ryan noted that unhoused people who want a cell phone can check in with the library on Wednesdays, when people from the county’s Community Court program and Catholic Charities help people to apply for free government phones.

"Big Bucket O’ Tunes" (a collection of some 4000+ tunes he curated from 2014-’22), old & current ID’s & Blurbs, and outtakes from his morning show on 'The X' in the ’90’s.

Radio Bruce Van Dyke’s only on: jiveradio.org/bvd

| BY LORYN ELIZARES

Teachers eye ‘rainy-day fund’

The ‘Time for 20’ plan would cap class sizes and raise pay for educators, school staff

Teachers have a plan for the Nevada Rainy Day Fund, and it has nothing to do with the Legislature giving massive tax breaks to Hollywood moguls or spending money on stadiums.

“We’re asking for some of that rainy-day fund money that’s just sitting … to be pulled into education to essentially pay for the lack of pay that everybody in the district has, as well as put more into programs for kids,” said Jessica Fernainy, a Washoe County teacher.

The rainy-day fund balance is about $900 million—the highest in Nevada state history and more than double 2020’s total.

The teachers’ plan is called “Time for 20.” It asks for a 20% raise in teacher pay, a $20 minimum hourly rate for support staff, and a class-size cap of 20 students.

“We cannot expect Massachusetts results while spending Mississippi money,” reads a headline on the Nevada State Education Association website. The NSEA notes that Nevada schools regularly rank among the worst in the nation, with overcrowding, low teacher pay and staff retention among the state’s major problems. Teachers and support staff see those conditions every day.

“The class sizes are too big,” said Joanne Ault, a speech pathologist at the school district. “Teachers are really unable to handle some of the behaviors that we have in schools now. And I’ve seen a big difference in 21 years.”

Ault said incidents involving student behavior have “skyrocketed” during the last five years. “Teachers don’t feel like

they have support,” Ault said. “What we need from the community is parent support. We need people to support their teachers and support the educators. How many more years can everybody take this kind of thing before something changes?”

Lu Hansen, who holds a master’s degree in special education, had been a “strategies” teacher for five years in Washoe County schools. Those teachers focus on “instructional design and implementation,” working more directly with the students. Strategies teachers often have a physically demanding job, Hansen noted. She is now a “resource teacher,” which is more of a support role.

“After five years, I could not do one more day,” Hansen said. “It’s a very physical, laborious (job). I really liked it, but I physically burnt out.”

Teacher burnout is a national problem. The number of teachers in Nevada declined by 6 percent in 2022 compared to the previous year, according to the National Education Association. That was the third-worst decrease in the nation. Nevada also ranks high in overcrowded classrooms. States with the highest student-teacher ratios in 2020 were California, Utah and Nevada, according to the NEA.

The state also has a bad report card when it comes to paying educators. In Washoe County, pay scales for educational support professionals, as well as school support like the janitorial department, start as low as $10 an hour. Nevada teachers make nearly $7,500 per year below the national average—and $27,000 less than teachers in neighboring California, according to the NEA.

At a time when housing prices and rents

are soaring, the Time for 20 plan would give salaried teachers a cost-of-living boost. In addition, the union argues, higher pay will increase teacher retention.

According to the union, from August through January of this year, there have been “67 percent more licensed staff separations than a typical year over the same time period,” including 300 more teachers who quit than during the previous school year.

“Right now, I think the biggest issue for me is definitely the pay,” Hansen said. “I’ve really grown to love teaching. I see the impact that I make, and it’s exciting … (but) I have two kids in college, and I cannot sustain this, unfortunately, with the cost of living that everyone’s experiencing.”

Some teachers rely on their spouses to make ends meet.

“I own a house with my husband. If it wasn’t for him, I would have no money left for anything after paying for my mortgage and everything,” Fernainy said. “I don’t feel it as much as other people feel it, but I know we don’t have enough money to have kids anytime soon, so I don’t know what’s going to happen.”

Other Western states have raised salaries and reduced class sizes. Lawmakers in New Mexico last year passed a measure that will increase salaried staff pay by 6% and more than double teaching assistants’ pay from $12,000 per year to $25,000. Oklahoma raised certified staff pay by $3,000 to $6,000 based on experience. Oklahoma House Speaker Charles McCall, quoted in The Oklahoman after the bill’s passage, said: “I would want educators in the state to look at what’s come out of this package and know there was never any question about their value or whether or not a teacher pay raise was going to happen.”

Brian Wallace, the NSEA vice president, said Nevada leaders should follow the lead of New Mexico and Oklahoma. “Our schools are at a breaking point, but we know how to fix it,” he said. “Pay educators more so we’re competitive; improve working conditions for better morale; and respect us and the work we do.”

Teachers have been lobbying Nevada lawmakers about the Time for 20 proposal, and they ask community members to support the cause. Nevadans can get involved by writing a letter to the governor and their state representatives, they said.

“Educators know what works, and if we are serious about getting every Nevada student and family access to a quality education, our elected leaders need to adequately fund our public schools,” said Dawn Etcheverry, president of the NSEA and a music teacher in Washoe County. “That’s why we say it’s Time for 20.”

The Reno News & Review is looking to expand its paid freelance writing team! We are looking for:

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If you have the knowledge, the desire, and the ability to write and report, email a resume, clips/writing samples and anything else you would like to share to jimmyb@renonr.com!

Reno High School students navigate the school’s hallway. Photo/David Robert

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Planets and Bright Stars in Evening Mid-Twilight

For June, 2023

This sky chart is drawn for latitude 40 degrees north, but may be used in continental U.S. and southern Canada.

June’s evening sky chart.

Illustration/Robert D. Miller

background stars throughout June—Venus by nearly 1°, slowing to about 0.6° per day, and Mars by 0.6° daily. The gap between Venus and Mars shrinks to 8° on June 8, and 7° on June 11. Use binoculars to watch Venus pass north of the Beehive June 12-14. The brilliant planet appears within 5° to the west (lower right) of Mars from June 19-July 10. Least separation of 3.6° occurs on June 30, with Venus still west of Mars. An approach of one planet within 5° of another without overtaking it is called a quasiconjunction. The planets now begin to spread apart and won’t appear as close again until the latter half of February 2024.

| BY ROBERT VICTOR

left of Mars. Later that evening, shortly after 10 p.m., the crescent moon’s southern cusp (the lower point of the crescent) passes just 2.6° to the upper right of Venus.

On the 22nd, the 22 percent crescent moon is 5° to the right of Regulus. Mars and Venus are 7° and 11° to lower right of the moon, respectively.

On June 23, the 30 percent moon has passed all three objects. Regulus, Mars and Venus appear to the moon’s lower right, by 9°, 18° and 22°, respectively.

Continuing its eastward motion through the zodiac, on the 27th at dusk, the 88 percent moon passes within 4° to the upper left of Spica, the spike of grain in the hand of Virgo.

June skies

Venus and Jupiter dominate the skies— and it’s a great month to view the Milky Way

Venus, the brilliant evening “star” in the west at dusk in June, brightens nearly to its peak while closing in on faint Mars and Regulus. Golden Arcturus, high is south at dusk, is the brightest actual star currently visible at nighttime. The Summer Triangle in the east and Antares in the southeast announce the imminent arrival of the Milky Way. Jupiter dominates the predawn.

The June 2023 Sky Calendar illustrates many of the events described in this column. It, together with a constellation map for the month’s evening sky, is available by subscription at www. abramsplanetarium.org/skycalendar.

Evenings: Venus reaches a maximum of 45° to the upper left of the setting Sun on June 3, and brightens from magnitude -4.4 to -4.7 during June. On June 1, Venus is 68 million miles from Earth. Through

a telescope, it then displays a disk 23” (arc seconds) across and half illuminated. On June 30, Venus is 46 million miles from our planet and shows a disk 34” across and one-third full. The crescent becomes large enough to detect even with binoculars, if observed in daylight or bright twilight, before the contrast of Venus against a darkening sky becomes too great. Seen from Reno, Venus on June 1 is 36° up at sunset, and sets 3.3 hours after the sun. On June 30, though Venus is still nearly 42° from the sun, it’s only 26° up in the west at sunset, and sets 2.3 hours after sunset.

Watch Venus close in on Mars! On June 1, Venus is 5.2° to the left of Pollux, and aligns with the Twins, Pollux and Castor, 4.5° apart. Mars is then 10.5° to the upper left of Venus. Binoculars show stars of the Beehive cluster surrounding Mars that evening and the next. Both planets are moving east against

Mornings: Jupiter, of magnitude -2.1 to -2.2 in Aries, is the standout object of dawn, starting low in the east and climbing as the month progresses. Saturn, of magnitude +0.9 to +0.7, begins June in the southeast, and climbs higher toward the south. Saturn begins retrograde on June 17, 4.8° west-southwest of fourth-magnitude Lambda in Aquarius. Around then, the rings are tipped 7.3° from edge-on, the least for this year. On June 19, 2.5 years after their very close pairing in December 2020, Jupiter and Saturn are 60° apart. Mercury has a very poor apparition for northerners, climbing only 2° above the horizon in mid-twilight early in June, as seen from Reno. Using binoculars June 1-17, look 13° to 34° to the lower left of Jupiter. The waning moon at dawn appears near Saturn on June 9 and 10, near Jupiter on the 14th, and near Mercury on the 16th Moonlight, all night: On the night of June 3-4, the full strawberry moon appears 4° to the lower left of Antares at dusk, and 7° to the upper left of the star at dawn.

The moon returns to the early evening sky on June 18 as a thin, 1 percent crescent, very low in the west-northwest, 34° to the lower right of Venus 30-40 minutes after sunset. It will provide a chance to catch the young moon within 24 hours after new. To succeed, seek out a spot where mountains won’t block your view, and use binoculars.

On following nights, the moon sets later, in a darker sky, and will be easy for unaided eye. On June 19, find the 4 percent moon 22° to the lower right of Venus, and within 3° to 4° to the lower right of Pollux. On June 20, the 9 percent crescent will appear 11° to the lower right of Venus and 9° to the upper left of Pollux.

On June 21, a four-day old, 14 percent moon closely paired within 3° to the upper right of a 39 percent Venus proves that the planet, facing a greater portion of its sunlit hemisphere toward us, must be the more distant object. Note Mars 4.5° to the upper left of Venus, and the star Regulus, heart of Leo, 11° to the upper

Three nights later, at dusk on June 30, the star Antares appears about 2° to the lower left of a 93 percent moon. Binoculars will be useful for seeing the star deep in the lunar glare, especially later that night, as the moon closes in. Around 2 a.m. on Saturday, July 1, the moon’s southern edge passes just more than a half of a moon’s width north of the star.

When the Summer Triangle of Vega, Deneb and Altair has completely risen by nightfall, and the Scorpion moves into the southern sky, we know that the season for evening viewing of the Milky Way is at hand. On dark, moonless nights, look for the Teapot asterism formed by eight bright stars of Sagittarius, the Archer. It follows Antares and the Scorpion across the southern sky, while the Summer Triangle climbs high in the east. The Milky Way looks like a cloud of steam rising out of the spout of the Teapot, and passing through the Summer Triangle, along the neck of Cygnus, the Swan. As we face the “Great Sagittarius Star Cloud” above the Teapot spout, we’re looking toward the inner regions of our Milky Way, and as we look at the “Cygnus Star Cloud,” we’re looking ahead of the sun, into our own spiral arm, which binoculars readily resolve into many stars!

The Milky Way is in an ideal position for observation in a dark, moonless sky, with the center of our galaxy highest and due south at June 12 at 1:25 a.m., getting four minutes earlier each night, until June 22 at 12:45 a.m.

There are other good viewing times! If you look on earlier dates or times of night, the Milky Way won’t be as high in the sky. Later, the southern parts of the Milky Way will start to descend lower. In July, the ideal viewing times will back into convenient evening hours. Try to avoid moonlight, or areas with bright artificial lights.

Robert C. Victor originated the Abrams Planetarium monthly Sky Calendar in October 1968 and still produces issues occasionally, including May and July 2023. He enjoys being outdoors sharing the beauty of the night sky and other wonders of nature.

Stereographic Projection Map by Robert D. Miller

Open space in Sparks

Wedekind Regional Park is an often-overlooked gem, with various trails and two wonderful peaks

Wedekind Regional Park is located just a few miles north of downtown Sparks—and even though it’s a rare remaining plot of Nevada open space preserved within a city’s limits, it’s often overlooked. With numerous trails maintained throughout and several access points, Wedekind is a great spot to enjoy a slice of nature that could practically be in your backyard.

Wedekind’s main entrance is located off Disc Drive near the intersection with Pyramid Highway. The rocky peak rising up behind Sprouts makes an imposing first impression. The gravel lot at this entrance often includes a portable restroom during warmer seasons, and a large sign welcomes

visitors to the network of trails within, all a part of the Sparks Regional Trail System.

There are a handful of pedestrian access points around the perimeter of the park, with another parking area and trailhead at the end of Fourth Street. This space greets you with trees lining the Orr Ditch drainage and a bridge crossing into the park itself. Numerous faux logs and a small shade structure could serve as an outdoor classroom, or just a space to sit and appreciate the beauty of this open space.

Wedekind is evidence of this area’s volcanic history, with—geologically speaking—recent development, between 10-20 million years ago. The link between geological activity and the presence of silver and gold made the land near

| BY MAGGIE NICHOLS

Despite being surrounded on all sides by neighborhoods, major roads and businesses, Wedekind Regional Park contains 250 acres of recreation opportunities.

Photo/Maggie Nichols

present-day Wedekind Regional Park a target for mining operations in the late 1890s. At one point, there were dozens of exploratory tunnels in the area. You can learn about the history of mines here at the Fourth Street entrance.

Despite being surrounded on all sides by neighborhoods, major roads and businesses, Wedekind Regional Park contains 250 acres of recreation opportunities. Trails crisscross the whole park and lead up to the tops of both peaks contained within, with strenuous but relatively short hikes to reach the summits. At each top, there is a small shade structure and seating area.

The peaks within Wedekind provide panoramic views of the surrounding hills and valleys. Spectacular in any season, they showcase the urban forest of trees in the surrounding Sparks, Reno and Spanish Springs neighborhoods against the backdrop of the Nevada high desert. In spring and summer, this sea of greenery is a wondrous sight—and in the fall, the changing colors are gorgeous.

The trail from the Disc Drive trailhead to the top of the nearest peak and back is a little more than a mile round-trip. Circumnavigating the entire perimeter of the park on established trails is around 4 miles. But with so many trails winding through the space, trail intersections are frequent and create opportunities to “choose your own adventure.” Many of the trails can be rocky and steep, and some contain loose gravel or mud, so they’re best enjoyed on foot. The whole park is a designated off-leash area for dogs as long as they’re under voice control.

Coyotes are frequent visitors within the park, as are marmots, with eagles and hawks often soaring overhead. Fence lizards dash to and fro, and songbirds nest in the cottonwood trees along Orr Ditch, which runs along portions of the west, south and east borders.

Though there are no trees growing in the main part of Wedekind—there are some along Orr Ditch—the park still has a lot to offer on summer days. Heading out early in the morning often allows for solitude, and most weekdays see few visitors to the park. On hot days, the tops of the two peaks often still manage to find a cooling breeze, and on cooler days, the sun warms you.

Whether you’re looking for a reason to get off the busy Pyramid Highway during rush hour, or want to enjoy a quick early-morning jaunt with your dog, Wedekind Regional Park has something to offer in every season.

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Tank Options & Tankless

The last one showering shouldn’t be left in the cold! GO TANKLESS.

Summers in Northern Nevada have traditionally been fantastic. But in recent years, things have been changing..

First, there's the heat: By some measures, climate change has made Reno the fastest-warming city in the country—which means more hot, sweltering days.

Then there's the smoke. Smoke from wildfires around the west has, for millennia, occasionally traveled to and gotten caught in the natural bowl that is the Truckee Meadows. In recent years, however, that's been happening far more than occasionally.

Then there's the pandemic, which has cast a pall on each of our last three summers, to varying degrees.

Despite it all, Northern Nevada's summers are still pretty amazing—and the summer of 2023 has the potential to be one of the best we've ever seen.

Welcome to the 2023 RN&R Summer Guide.

The film industry has been trying to get back to normal for a couple of years now, and 2023 looks like it’s getting closer. We have a bunch of sequels, remakes and brainless big-budget projects on the way! This will be a summer when we can go to a theater rather than stay home, and watch things go really, really fast and/or explode.

Here’s a selection of films in the next few months that will attempt to coax you out to theaters over Netflixxing and/or Maxxing in your residential cocoon. (If you absolutely refuse to leave your house, calm down, because we’ve included some major streaming releases, too.) The release dates here are accurate as of this writing, but they could change, and often do.

Oh, and stick around, for the after main article, I talk a little bit about some TV series coming up this summer. (It’s like a post credits scene in a Marvel movie!)

THE MOVIES

a good chance that Dwayne “The Rock My Cock” Johnson will eventually return to the franchise after the world said, “Fuck you!” to his Black Adam. I hadn’t seen this film yet as of this writing, but I’m guessing it will have car chases in it, and some of those cars will go boom and perhaps wind up on Mars or driving underwater.

The Little Mermaid (May 26): I’m not a big fan of the live-action remakes of Disney animated classics. In fact, I’m not a fan at all. To hell with these damn things! They’re a waste of creative energies. So what if I’ve sort of enjoyed one or two of them? They’re still stupid.

Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (June 2): The first of these animated Spidey movies was a masterpiece. Here’s hoping the sequel offers more of the same.

The Boogeyman (June 2): A great Stephen King story from his Night Shift collection gets the PG-13 horror-film treatment. PG-13 horror is like pizza with cheddar cheese and ketchup for sauce.

you are into the whole cars-changing-intorobots thing. If you’re not, might I suggest a nice paperback book for your Saturday evening? You could even read one on your Kindle tablet gizmo. I know, I know; reading makes you involuntarily nap. I have the same issue. Well, then, how about a nice trip to the ice cream parlor for a tasty root beer float? They can be marvelous this time of year!

Flamin’ Hot (June 9, Disney+): Yes, there’s a movie about the creation of Flamin’ Hot Cheetos by a Frito Lay janitor on its way to your home screens. Snack chips are getting movies now!

The Flash (June 16): Warner Bros. is trying to get this into theaters before star Ezra Miller completely loses his mind in public. (He’s definitely pushing the envelope with his wacked-out real-life shenanigans.) The Flash runs around in a multiverse that includes the return of Michael Keaton as Batman. Of everything happening at the movies this summer, nothing is more exciting than having Keaton in the cowl again. Come on, June 16! Get here before Ezra completely melts down on security footage at a Shell gas station and gets the release cancelled!

Elemental (June 16): Pixar has been experiencing a bit of a lull due to less-than-

spectacular offerings and Disney sending a few of their releases straight to streaming. Lightyear got a theatrical release, but its lack of a connection to the original Toy Story made audiences grumpy. This one about cartoon representations of the elements (fire, water, etc.) looks a little like Inside Out (which had animated representations of moods and emotions). Hopefully it gets Pixar back on its usual track of turning out one animated masterpiece after another.

Extraction 2 (June 16, Netflix): Chris Hemsworth comes back for more Netflix fun! I remember absolutely nothing about the first chapter of this franchise, other than something was indeed extracted, and I don’t think it was wisdom teeth.

Asteroid City (June 16): Hopefully this will represent a return to form for Was Anderson, who bored me to death with his last movie, The French Dispatch; it was the first of his films that I didn’t enjoy. I’m liking the production design on this one. It looks a lot like the Cars ride at Disneyland.

Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny (June 30): In this film, Harrison Ford’s Indy crash-lands a plane on a golf course and totally ruins some dude’s best golf day ever. (He had five birdies!) Oh, no, wait; that actually happened to Harrison Ford. This is just another movie in which he puts on the fedora and grabs the whips—except this time, Steven Spielberg said, “No mas!” as director, and Ford is superold. We’ll see if the 127-year-old can pull this off without having a limb disengage and fall on the floor.

Biosphere (July 7): This is not to be confused with Pauly Shore’s Bio-Dome,

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Fast X (May 19): Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 got things started, and this is your second blast of mush-mouthed Vin Diesel in May. (He, of course, provides the voice of Groot in Guardians.) I think, at one point, this was supposed to be the last Fast film, but now it’s being called the first chapter in a finale trilogy—so the nightmare goes on. There’s Elemental

Transformers: Rise of the Beasts (June 9): No Shia, no Mark Wahlberg, no Megan Fox, no Michael Bay. Unfortunately, no Hailee Steinfeld, who was in the vastly improved Transformers movie Bumblebee. (It was set in the ’80s, so her character would be too old for her face.) This is an all-new take with an all-new cast. The previews look promising if

BlueBeetle

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which cost people a few brain cells when they watched it (mostly due to Stephen Baldwin; Pauly’s performance was soul-enriching). Biosphere stars Mark Duplass and Sterling K. Brown as the last two men on Earth.

Mission: Impossible—Dead Reckoning Part One (July 12): This annoyingly long movie title makes it sound like the film has zombies in it. Hey, I’d be all-in for a Tom Cruise secretagent/bloodthirsty-zombie mashup. But, alas, this is just him running around, falling from high places and looking all quizzical again. His dyed hair is not matching his complexion. Let it go gray!

Oppenheimer (July 21): Nothing can get your summer-movie season going like a reallife drama about how the human race basically screwed itself back in the’40s. Hey, the doll movie described in the next paragraph comes out the same week if you need to balance things out. Christopher Nolan directs this one, and that means you will be watching a lot of intimate, slo-mo shots of atomic explosions on screens across the USA! Look at all those vibrant oranges and reds! We might all die from this someday!

Barbie (July 21): Two of the most beautiful people in the world (Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling) play Barbie and Ken in this film from writer-director Greta Gerwig. With Gerwig (Lady Bird, Little Women) at the helm, this should be something way beyond a typical, by-the-numbers toy-franchise-adaptation movie. I’m thinking it will be a lot better than Battleship.

Haunted Mansion (July 28): I hated the Eddie Murphy Haunted Mansion movie, but

I did love Muppets Haunted Mansion, and now this take has Rosario Dawson, LaKeith Stanfield and, from the looks of it, plenty of nice nods to the theme-park ride. Yes, Disney often just takes established franchises, rides and animated classics, and uses them to push out routine “new” spins, but this looks like it could be fun. However, I always say optimistic stuff like that before the resultant shit splatters onscreen. Oh, that was negative. Sorry … I will try to be happier. I REALLY HOPE THIS ONE IS GOOD! HAUNTED MANSION IS ONE OF MY FAVORITE RIDES!

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem (Aug. 4): Seth Rogen produces a new animated take on the Turtles that looks to be faithful to their dark comic roots—and it may very well prominently feature weed. Sadly, it won’t have James Franco. He and Rogen are no longer on speaking terms. This makes me sad.

Meg 2: The Trench (Aug. 4): Ben Wheatley, the guy who directed the weird serial-killer movie Sightseers, directs a giantshark movie. I am very much looking forward to this one.

Gran Turismo (Aug. 11): I know this is an old video game, because I don’t currently play video games, but I recall playing this game when I had a Playstation 2 or Atari or whatever the fuck the console was way back then.

Heart of Stone (Aug. 11, Netflix): Gal Gadot, possibly out as Wonder Woman in the new James Gunn-led DC world, now has a Netflix action franchise. She had to personally turn in her golden-rope thing and crown to Gunn last week, and word is that it was very awkward, culminating in Gunn getting dick-punched.

Barbie

Strays (Aug. 18): Foul-mouthed dogs (including a Boston terrier voiced by Jamie Foxx; Boston terriers rule!) go on an adventure to return a good-natured pup (voiced by Will Ferrell) to his negligent master (Will Forte) so he may bite his dick off. I’m not being vulgar for the sake of being vulgar: That’s the actual plot. Really.

Blue Beetle (Aug. 18): This DC offering looks a lot like a Spider-Man knock off. But ya know, the character is blue. And, apparently, a beetle. Actually, I like beetles more than spiders. I’m gonna give this one a shot.

The Equalizer 3 (Sept. 1): And the summer movie season comes to an end with Denzel Washington in his so-so action franchise.

SOME TV SHOWS

FUBAR (May 25, Netflix): Arnold Schwarzenegger gets a TV show! His career decline is complete. If the show is great, he shall be resurrected, not unlike crusty Harrison Ford and his new status as a TV mega-star (Shrinking, 1923).

I Think You Should Leave With Tim Robinson, Season 3 (May 30, Netflix): This will probably be the funniest thing you see this summer. The first two seasons were spectacular.

The Crowded Room (June 9, Apple TV+): This has Tom Holland in it, and the more projects Holland does, the more time it will be until another Spider-Man movie comes out. So I’m sort of mad at this show before I even see it. I am what you would call a big, lame-ass geek baby.

The Full Monty (June 14, Hulu): Everything is a little saggier as the story picks up many years later.

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, Season 2 (June 15, Paramount+): I watched two episodes of Season 1 and liked them. I’m not sure why I stopped watching. Maybe the show’s not that great, because I failed to see it through? Maybe I’m just a lazy bastard?

The Walking Dead: Dead City (June 18, AMC): Zombies in NYC, with Lauren Cohan and Jeffrey Dean Morgan. I might actually start watching The Walking Dead again.

Secret Invasion (June 21, Disney +): Samuel L. Jackson is back as Nick Fury, the role that doesn’t allow him to say motherfucker, ’cause, you know, the kids are watching.

The Bear, Season 2 (June 22, Hulu): Here’s another show I really liked but never finished as far as first season is concerned. It’s confirmed: I am a lazy TV bastard.

Twisted Metal (July 27, Peacock): I played this video game. I actually owned it. I don’t get to say that a lot, and I’ve said it twice in one article. No, I don’t play a lot of video games. This is just quite the coincidence.

Only Murders in the Building, Season 3 (Aug. 8, Hulu): Meryl Streep is joining Steve, Martin, and Selena!

Ahsoka (August TBD, Disney +): I am in “no longer gives a shit about Star Wars” mode right now, and I do not have high hopes this will return me to the fold.

Only Murders in the Building

Summer is the season for silliness. It’s a time for running through sprinklers, painting your fingernails 10 different colors, staying out too late, eating junk food … and being entertained by shows that are delightful, funny and unlikely to make you to think too hard.

At least that’s how I plan to spend my summer.

Local performing-arts companies appear to have gotten that memo. Many of their lineups are filled with lighthearted fare—with comedies, feel-good dramas, upbeat dance numbers, killer tunes … or a combination of all of these.

Of course, the challenge in putting together a guide like this is that I’m forecasting months in advance, and as I write this, several companies either hadn’t finalized details or simply aren’t sharing them. Be sure to double check companies’ websites or social-media pages for schedule and ticketing details.

RENO

Ageless Repertory Theatre

ART is a readers’ theater troupe: Actors perform roles with scripts in hand, using only the simplest of sets and costumes to aid in telling their stories. ART’s performances are at 1 p.m., one Tuesday and one Friday each month. Best of all, they’re free! (Donations are welcome.)

On June 13 and 16, look for Tuesdays With Morrie, the stage adaptation of Mitch Albom’s famous autobiographical work about his lifechanging reunion with, and weekly pilgrimage to visit, his old, dying college professor.

ART’s Artown offering is Social Security, running July 11 and 14, with a special Artown performance added on Wednesday, July 12, at 7 p.m. In this comedy, married art dealers have their lives turned upside down when

family unexpectedly arrives at their doorstep. (This is one of two performances of this show happening this summer; the second is in Carson Valley.)

renolittletheater.org/art-at-rlt

A.V.A. Ballet Theatre

Ballet and rock music may make strange bedfellows, but here in Reno, they’re a winning combo. A.V.A. Ballet’s Vortex, the Ballet That Rocks always packs the house with its unique blend of popular rock, dance and alternative music; contemporary ballet; and spectacular sets and costumes.

It’s also free, so make plans to get to Bartley Ranch Regional Park’s Robert Z. Hawkins Amphitheater early on Friday or Saturday, July 14 and 15.

www.avaballet.com

Brüka Theatre

Brüka’s 30th season draws to a close at the end of summer, but not before the company kicks up its heels with Kinky Boots, running a whole month, June 23-July 22. It’s well-timed; leading up to Northern Nevada Pride, this musical is about Charlie Price, who takes over his family’s shoemaking factory and turns to an unlikely hero, Lola, a drag performer. An ensemble of 22 people plays factory workers in this show by Harvey Fierstein and Cyndi Lauper; the rights for small theaters were only recently released.

While this is Brüka’s last mainstage show of the season, the company will be busy all summer. Its two-week youth theater camp will run July 10-23, culminating in a studentcreated show based on the theme “The Mystery of the Mysterious Play,” devised in only two weeks, with public performances on the last weekend.

Brüka will also take part once again in the Sierra Nevada Lavender and Honey Festival, happening Sunday, July 9, at Idlewild Park. Performances all day include theater work by Brüka’s youth actors as well as jazz tunes by Cami Thompson and CeCe Gable.

In September, as school begins, Brüka’s Theatre for Children will present The Paramount and Wildly Ridiculous History of Nevada, touring libraries and schools with this 45-minute show that attempts to present the entire history of Nevada. Catch a public performance Saturday, July 8, on the Brüka stage.

www.bruka.org

Goodluck Macbeth

GLM has made a strong commitment to presenting original, locally created work, and its summer shows reflect it, starting with The

10 10-Minute Play Festival. Drawing upon the barest of writing prompts—this year’s being “box”—10 local playwrights, including some local high schoolers, created their own 10-minute plays, which are produced using real actors and minimal sets. They run on Friday and Saturday, June 9 and 10—five each night, so you can make a weekend of it.

Another original creation takes the stage for Artown, July 7-29: Shark! A GLM Original Parody. Parodies have become something of a specialty for GLM, which has proven especially gifted at eliciting guffaws from savvy audiences. A spoof of the original summer blockbuster, Jaws, this show will include plenty of Easter eggs for the film’s diehard fans, as well as references to Reno that locals are sure to love. The GLM crew also will participate in the Pride parade.

As GLM turns its sights toward raising funds for both its many productions and a capital campaign, its repertoire will include shows produced by outside companies renting the space, as well as fundraising events. Check out the award-winning Puppeteers for Fears, from Ashland, Ore., which brings its magical combo of horror, comedy and puppets (for mature audiences only) to the stage on Wednesday, July 19, with Cthulhu: The Musical!

Then on Friday and Saturday, Aug. 11 and 12, catch TSTMRKT (pronounced “test market”), a Las Vegas-based sketch-comedy company of one (Ernest Hemmings) that utilizes film loops, cut-and-paste theater and a recorded score to stage its one-man performances; there’s no tech crew, just a start button. The production is Everyone Loves Dick: The Life and Times of Dick Ripper.

Local fashion designer Kate Caufield, a Nevada Arts Council grant recipient, will present her work in a fashion show at GLM on Saturday, Aug. 26. Around the Stage Dance Company will present its latest work here in a fundraiser on Saturday, Sept. 9.

Also, every Sunday in August, watch for classic film screenings by arthouse cinema company Theater 42, which opened for about five minutes in a building on Moana Lane before permit issues forced its closure.

If you’d like to contribute to GLM’s mission and productions, stop by Chapel Tavern on Saturday, June 17, for an afternoon fundraiser; enjoy food and drink; try to win a raffle prize; and maybe even see your favorite performer. www.goodluckmacbeth.org

Latino Arte and Culture

Reno is home to this Latinx-based performing arts and culture organization, helmed by Mario DelaRosa and Annamaria Cavallone. The company has presented a variety of bilingual (Spanish/English) theatrical and cultural events at locations around Reno/Sparks since 2010.

Brüka Theatre kicks up its heels with Kinky Boots June 23-July 22. Photo/David Robert

From Thursday, June 8, through Saturday, June 10, it presents LGBTQIA+ Latinx at Reno Little Theater. DelaRosa describes it as “a revealing and complex play that shows communities that have historically been marginalized by an oppressive-heteropatriarch-conservative-white society.” This dramedy will feature an all Latinx cast, most of whom are part of the LGBTQIA+ community.

On Saturday, June 24, head over to Teglia’s Paradise Park for the Mariachi and Folklore of the Nations Festival, a free event that will include games, arts and crafts vendors, food trucks, live music and more. latinoarte.org

Reno Jazz Orchestra

This 17-piece contemporary band has been around for 26 years, traveling with, hosting and paying homage to legendary performers in the jazz, swing and big-band world. This summer’s lineup starts Saturday and Sunday, June 3-4, when students in the RJO Jazz Workshop—a nine-week course for teens to develop improvisation, ear training, jazz theory and performance skills —and the Reno Youth Jazz

Orchestra perform on the Goodluck Macbeth stage, performing works by Count Basie, Benny Carter, Sammy Nestico and others.

Look for the RJO on stages around Reno and Lake Tahoe, including Hot House: One Night at the Savoy Ballroom, a 1930s-themed stage show with big band/swing music and dance. This Artown performance is free to the public at the new J Resort in Reno on Saturday, July 29. The show then travels to Sand Harbor’s stage as part of the (ticketed) Lake Tahoe Shakespeare Festival on Monday, July 31.

The company will also open the Jazz and Beyond Festival in Carson City on Friday, Aug. 11, at the Governor’s Mansion. Then the band will join Grammy-winning saxophonist Tom Scott, on Sunday, Aug. 20, at UNR’s Nightingale Concert Hall, and Monday, Aug. 21, at the Shakespeare Festival. www.renojazzorchestra.org

Reno Little Theater

Like Brüka, RLT is presenting a Broadway musical for the month of Artown: Seussical the Musical runs June 30-July 30. Oh, the places

you’ll go in this tale of an elephant, a bird and a boy, along with some of the most beloved characters from the world of Dr. Seuss. Shea King, a theater instructor at Truckee Meadows Community College who is currently heading up its performing arts troupe, will direct this one. UNR dance faculty Nate Hodges choreographs it, and Abby Rosen, fresh off directing GLM’s Men on Boats, provides vocal direction.

Friday, Aug. 18, through Sunday, Aug. 20, director Stacey Spain will lead RLT’s Teens Speak Out education-program show. TSO productions are inspired by a theme and are comprised of prewritten works, movement and devised work, which is developed as the teen actors rehearse. This year’s show, Now I Lay Me Down 2 Sleep, addresses the topic of unhoused youth. Each performance will be followed by a talkback, and the group is working with Eddy House for awareness and fundraising.

RLT also hosts a monthly jazz performance by For the Love of Jazz on the third Sunday of each month. And its one-week Act Out Theater Camp programs, with each week having a different theme, are available to kids in kindergarten through sixth grade the weeks of June 19, June 26, July 17, July 24, July 31 and Aug. 7. renolittletheater.org

Sierra Nevada Ballet

I love a free show, and July is full of them. Here’s another one: Sierra Nevada Ballet will present Dancing at Bartley on Friday, July

her race, with music by Franz Liszt. It runs Saturday, July 22, at the Pioneer Center; Monday, July 24, at the Shakespeare Festival; and Saturday, Aug. 5, at the Carson City Community Center.

sierranevadaballet.org

The Pioneer Center for the Performing Arts

Before SNB’s show, Reno’s premier performance venue will host several performers, starting with Reno Dance Company’s Full Body Rock, an original musical revue that blends classic and current rock hits with a multitude of dance genres, on Sunday, June 4 (two showings).

The Shamrock Productions and Dancin! Performing Arts Center present a showcase of Irish dance, ballet, tap, jazz, hip hop and contemporary dance and musical theater on Monday, June 12. Then on Saturday, June 17, catch Core Connection Dance Company’s recital, Step Up and Dance!

The Reno Philharmonic Orchestra presents Disney’s A Dream Is a Wish for two showings on Saturday, June 24, featuring Broadwaycaliber vocalists, clips from beloved Disney movies and some of Disney’s most recognized songs.

On Friday, June 30, enjoy speaker César Lozano’s Spanish-language talk about dealing with difficult people and circumstances.

Then summer break brings some of the world’s funniest teacher-comedians to Reno on Monday, July 10, for the Bored Teachers Comedy Tour. pioneercenter.com

The RJO Jazz Workshop and the Reno Youth Jazz Orchestra perform on the Goodluck Macbeth stage June 3-4.

hadallthetraditionaldishes frommoussakatothegyros - all amazing!Ithasthefeelofalocal dinerandthestaffmakesyoufeel athome" - Jacqueline G.

Diana Ross June 16

LeAnn Rimes June 24

Mike Epps June 17

Brian McKnight July 7 Melissa Etheridge July 8 Boyz II Men July 14

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Rogue Worx, the troupe of performers that brought #Millennial and Hush to The Theatre, is deep in development on its next production, The Game, a choose-your-own-adventure, psychedelic game show featuring elements of cabaret and cirque nouveau, which will run on Fridays starting Sept. 22. www.wethetheatre.com

TheatreWorks of Northern Nevada

This teaching theater focused on providing performing arts education to youth and the underserved is in its 18th season. TWNN will be providing its annual summer theater camp for kids June 19-23.

That sets the stage for its Artown production, The Neverending Story, based on the beloved children’s book. A longtime TWNN student and cast member, James Escobedo, will make his directorial debut with this show before heading to college in New York this fall. Catch a sneak peak of several scenes onstage at the Reno Public Market on Sunday, June 25. Full performances will take place July 7-30 at the company’s space at 315 Spokane St., which is newly remodeled. Thanks to Keller Williams’ RED Day, a day of community service for the realty company, TWNN was the recipient of a makeover, complete with new dressing rooms, storage, a tech booth, paint and flooring. twnn.org

SPARKS

Restless Artists Theatre

RAT’s intimate space in downtown Sparks is ideal for small productions. Its July 7-17 offering of Popcorn Falls is a perfect example. Only two actors play 20 roles in this farce about a small, bucolic hamlet with a waterfall that is turned upside down when an evil villain upstream from the town plans to divert the water and turn Popcorn Falls into a sewage treatment plant. Can the citizens can succeed in their plan to put on a theatrical production and save the town?

In August (dates TBD), RAT will present a show from one of its favorite playwrights, Lauren Gunderson. By and By is a sci-fi thriller about a nerdy father, his daughter, the wife he lost years ago and the lengths he goes to in order to re-create the love he shared with her. The story explores the threat of “edgy science.”

rattheatre.org

Sierra School of Performing Arts

One highlight of summer is always SSPA’s annual production under the stars at Bartley Ranch. This year is no different as the company presents The Addams Family, the musical based on the beloved TV series and

films about everybody’s favorite not-quitenormal family. Running Aug. 11-26, the show will include a live band. Because late summer is now Smoke Season, the company has established a contingency plan: The show will move to Damonte Ranch High School in the event of air quality becoming too poor to perform outside.

www.sierraschoolofperformingarts.org

CARSON CITY/CARSON VALLEY

Carson Valley Community Theatre

Carson Valley’s resident theater company will be the second one this summer to bring Andrew Bergman’s Social Security to the stage. As director Toni Tomei explains, the original 1986 Broadway production was directed by Mike Nichols and starred Marlo Thomas, Ron Silver and Olympia Dukakis. It’s a comedy about a hip married couple in Manhattan’s Upper East Side whose tranquility is shattered when the wife’s polar-opposite sister, brother-in-law and stereotypically Jewish mother descend on their doorstep. The show runs July 14-23 at the CVIC Hall in Minden.

www.carsonvalleycommunitytheatre.org

Carson City Ghost Walk

Brüka Theatre’s own Mary Bennett heads up this annual capital city favorite. In her role as Madame Curry, wife of Carson City’s own founding father, Abe Curry, she leads participants on a walk along the city’s streets, pointing out some of its most historic (and haunted!) structures and regaling guests with fascinating and spooky tales. Ghost walks occur on occasional Saturdays through the summer, starting June 10, leading up to an

all-day tour in October that enables guests to step inside homes and experience visits from “spirits.”

carsoncityghostwalk.com

Wild Horse Productions

Wild Horse’s Children’s Theater enjoys presenting works that will delight the youngest of audience members—even those who have a hard time sitting still. This summer, the company presents Jungle Book Kids, a 45-minute condensed version of the Disney classic. It moves along at a good clip, and there’s no intermission to slow things down. Two back-to-back performances take place on Friday, June 23, at the Brewery Arts Center Performance Hall.

www.wildhorsetheater.com

LAKE TAHOE

Lake Tahoe Shakespeare Festival

This year’s annual Shakespeare Festival will not feature Shakespeare, and it will not have two shows … but it’s certainly doubling down on silly, outrageous fun with Little Shop of Horrors as its mainstage production! So excited are the festival’s patrons that tickets are selling briskly. In case you’ve missed it until now, it’s the story of a plant that drinks blood and grows to such an enormous size that it can eat people.

Aside from the mainstage show, LTSF also will host several other local performing companies (some mentioned here), as well as concerts by such big-name acts as Pink Martini and Pablo Cruise.

laketahoeshakespeare.com

Maya Lee Miguel, Tosha Higgins and Braylon Martin will perform in TheatreWorks of Northern Nevada's production of The Neverending Story, taking place July 7-30. Photo/David Robert

AS WE EM ERGE

from a long winter, our thoughts turn to warm, summer days spent outdoors with family, friends and like-minded folks looking for a good time.

Similarly, many long-running summer events and festivals that have weathered the storm of a pandemic and an uncertain future are hoping to reclaim the crowd sizes of past years.

This is the first year in a while that feels like things are returning to “normal.” So if you feel like celebrating after a long winter (or pandemic), here’s a roundup of events going on in the Reno-Tahoe region that will help you plan to make this summer one of the best ever.

microbreweries. There will also be arts and crafts vendors, food vendors selling shaved ice, funnel cakes, street tacos and other tasty offerings and rock and blues acts performing throughout the day. The weekend event is open 3 p.m. to 11 p.m. on Friday, June 16; and noon to 10 p.m. on Saturday, June 17, outside the ROW properties on North Virginia Street in downtown Reno. Admission is free. Ticket price for the Tap Tent, which includes allyou-can-eat buffet and unlimited beer or beverages, is $134. Beer tasting packages are $40-$65. Visit www.caesars.com/therow-reno/events/bbq-brews-and-bluesfestival.

BEST IN THE WEST NUGGET RIB COOK-OFF:

ARTOWN: The 28th annual, citywide arts festival features concerts, theatrical performances, art exhibitions, children’s arts programs and many other free and ticketed events throughout the month of July. Artown kicks off on Saturday, July 1, with its annual Discover the Arts interactive children’s programs and arts activities beginning at 4:30 p.m. at McKinley Arts & Culture Center, 925 Riverside Drive, followed by the opening night parade led by MarchFourth, who will head down Riverside Drive starting at 6:15 p.m. The parade will end at Wingfield Park, 2 S. Arlington Ave., when Grammy Awardwinning band Ranky Tanky takes the Wingfield Amphitheater stage at 7:30 p.m. The opening event and concert is free. Call 775-322-1538, or visit artown.org.

AMERICAN CENTURY CELEBRITY GOLF TOURNAMENT: More than 80 sports stars and Hollywood actors, comedians and entertainers will participate in the three-day, 54-hole golf tournament, which includes a $600,000 purse, with $125,000 going to the winner, plus a charity component for local and national non-profits. The event gets under way with practice rounds on Wednesday and Thursday, July 12-13, followed by competitive play on Friday-Sunday, July 14-16, at Edgewood Tahoe Golf Course, 180 Lake Parkway, Stateline. Tickets for Wednesday’s practice round

and Thursday’s Celebrity-Amateur are $30 each day, with tournament rounds Friday, Saturday and Sunday at $40 daily. A pass for all five days is $125. Visit americancenturychampionship.com.

BASS CAMP FESTIVAL: The three-day, electronic dance music event takes place at various venues in downtown Reno. It all starts on Friday, July 28, with a series of pre-parties at concert halls, nightclubs and lounges. The main event on Saturday, July 29, features a vendor village, interactive artist paint wall, art installations and art cars, as well as performances by headliners Deadmau5 and Madeon, among many others, on three stages. The all-day dance party is open to all ages and begins at 2 p.m. at Wingfield Park, 2 S. Arlington Ave. The festival wraps up on Sunday, July 30, with a pool party at the new J Resort, 345 N. Arlington Ave., and the closing party featuring headliners Walker & Royce at Virginia Street Brewhouse, 211 N. Virginia St. Tickets are $20-$400, with $10 main festival event tickets for kids age 12 and younger. Visit basscampfest.com.

BBQ, BREWS & BLUES: The 26th annual barbecue and beer festival features a variety of lip-smacking fare, including St. Louis-style barbecue ribs, smoked beef brisket and pulled pork, and all the fixins, as well as a wide selection of brews and beverages from more than 50

The “Super Bowl of rib competitions” features more than 20 barbecue cooks competing for cash prizes and bragging rights to the “best ribs in the West.” An estimated 350,000-400,000 participants swarm downtown Sparks each year, consuming more than 250,000 pounds of ribs during the six-day festival. Visitors can also enjoy an arts and crafts vendor show, a kids’ area, a VIP area and live music and entertainment on two stages. The end-ofsummer bash kicks off on Wednesday, Aug. 30, and runs through Labor Day weekend at Victorian Square, along Victorian Avenue between 14th Street and Pyramid Way. Festival hours are 10:30 a.m. to 9 p.m., Wednesday through Sunday, Aug. 30-Sept. 3; and 10:30 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday, Sept. 4, when the winners will be announced. Admission is free. Visit nuggetribcookoff. com.

BIGGEST LITTLE WING FEST: Cookers will prepare more than 20,000 pounds of chicken wings to be devoured and judged as they compete for cash prizes and first-place honors during the ninth annual cook-off. The weekend festival features free concerts, a craft fair and familyfriendly activities such as camel rides, face painting, bungee jumping, rock climbing and a water play zone. The festival takes place in downtown Reno from 1 to 10 p.m. on Friday, July 28; and noon to 10 p.m., Saturday, July 29, along North Virginia Street between Second and Sixth streets. Admission is free. Visit www.caesars.com/ the-row-reno/events/wing-fest-2023.

BOWERS BLUEGRASS FESTIVAL: Northern Nevada Bluegrass Association presents its 37th annual gathering in Washoe Valley/ New Washoe City. The four-day festival includes camping, activities, food trucks, a beer and wine garden and performances by headliner Po’ Ramblin’ Boys and other

bluegrass, western swing, folk and oldtime music acts. The festivities kick off on Thursday, Aug. 24, with an afternoon jam camp and evening barbecue at the North Group Area at Washoe Lake State Park, 4855 Eastlake Blvd. Bands will perform from 4 p.m. to 9 p.m.; Friday, Aug. 25; and 10 a.m. to 7 p.m., Saturday, Aug. 26, at Bowers Mansion Regional Park, 4005 Bowers Mansion Road. The festival closes with the Sunday Morning Gospel Show on Sunday, Aug. 27, at Davis Creek Regional Park, 25 Davis Creek Road. Tickets are $15-$60. Admission is free for kids age 12 and younger. Camping rates are $15-$20 per vehicle at Washoe Lake State Park and $30 per vehicle at Davis Creek Campground. Visit www.nnba.org/ bowersbluegrassfstival.

BREWS, JAZZ & FUNK FEST: Sample a variety of beers from local and regional breweries and enjoy live music on two stages. Headliners ALO, Monophonics and Sal’s Greenhouse will perform on the main stage in the Events Plaza. Proceeds from the event benefit the Humane Society of Truckee-Tahoe. The event take place from 2 to 9 p.m., Saturday, Aug. 12, at The Village at Palisades Tahoe, 1750 Village East Road, Olympic Valley. Call 800-4030206, or visit www.palisadestahoe.com for ticket prices.

BURNING MAN: The temporary city dedicated to “community, art, selfexpression and self-reliance” returns to the Black Rock Desert. This year’s theme is “Animalia,” which celebrates the animal world and our place in it. The end-of-summer event takes place from Sunday, Aug. 27, through Monday, Sept. 4. Registration for tickets priced at $525 is July 26-28, ahead of the sale on Aug. 2. Visit burningman.org.

CARSON CITY ARTS & MUSIC FESTIVAL:

The Sierra Arts Foundation presents the inaugural festival showcasing local artists, musicians and nonprofits. The event lasts from noon to 5 p.m., Saturday, June 10, outside the Nevada State Legislature, 401 S. Carson St., downtown Carson City. Admission is free. Call 775-329-2787, or go to sierraarts.org.

CELTIC NIGHT: The Reno Public Market will present its celebration of Celtic culture and heritage as part of this year’s Artown festival. Attendees can enjoy an evening of food, history, speakers, art and performances by Last Night's Folly, Trad, Sierra Silverstrings, bagpiper

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Sean Cummings, Scottish Highland Dancers, Plastic Paddy, Karrie O'Niell with Kat MacMartin and a surprise guest performer. The party starts at 5 p.m., Wednesday, July 19, at the Reno Public Market, 299 E. Plumb Lane. Admission is free. Call 775-484-9819, or visit artown.org.

CLASSICAL TAHOE: The music festival features four weeks of outdoor orchestra, jazz, chamber music and family concerts in Incline Village. The Brubeck Jazz Summit kicks off the series from July 9-15, followed by performances by the Classical Tahoe Orchestra from July 21Aug. 6, Chamber Music at Classical Tahoe from July 23-Aug. 6, the Family Concert & Music Maker Faire on July 30, and the Classical Tahoe Summer Gala on Aug. 17. Most of the concerts take place at the Classical Tahoe Ricardi Pavilion on the campus of the University of Nevada, Reno, at Lake Tahoe, 291 Country Club Drive, Incline Village. Tickets are $15-$200. Call 775-298-0245, or visit classicaltahoe.org.

DRAGON LIGHTS RENO: The Wilbur D. May Arboretum will once again light up with more than 40 groups of larger-than-life lantern sculptures on display. Take an evening stroll through the arboretum’s illuminated paths as you encounter dragonflies, beetles, mantis and other glowing creatures. The showpiece Chinese dragon will also return, but in a whole new form. An expanded interactive playground will include popular displays such as Angel’s Wings and Light Up Swings, as well as a series of new displays. There will also be a variety of food and arts and craft vendors. The festival starts on Friday, June 30, and is open daily through Sunday, Aug. 13, at the Wilbur D. May Arboretum

at Rancho San Rafael Regional Park, 1595 N. Sierra St. Entry times are 6, 7, 8 and 9 p.m. Tickets are $20 for visitors age 12 and older and $15 ages 3-11. Admission is free for children under age 3. Visit dragonlightsreno.org.

FALLON CANTALOUPE FESTIVAL & COUNTRY

FAIR: The 38th annual festival celebrates Fallon’s agricultural past and present, showcases local talent and promotes Nevada businesses, as well as agricultural education. Attendees can enjoy fair exhibits, carnival rides, contests, a rodeo, a farmers’ market, kids’ activities, vendors, live music and more. The fair is open from 1 p.m. to midnight, Friday, Aug. 25; 9 a.m. to midnight, Saturday, Aug. 26; and 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., Sunday, Aug. 27, at the Churchill County Fairgrounds, 325 Sheckler Road, Fallon. Tickets are $5-$15. Call 775-866-8474, or visit www. falloncantaloupefestival.com.

FATHER’S DAY POWWOW: Learn about Northern Nevada’s Native American tribes and the stories of those who attended the Stewart Indian School at the annual Father’s Day weekend gathering, which features arts and crafts, food vendors and more than 200 costumed dancers accompanied by traditional drummers. The event highlights the tribes’ ability to preserve their traditions and history in the face of cultural assimilation. Grand entry performances start at 6:30 p.m., Friday, June 16; noon and 6:30 p.m., Saturday, June 17; and noon, Sunday, June 18, at the Stewart Indian School Cultural Center & Museum, 1 Jacobsen Way, Carson City. Call 775-687-7608, or visit stewartindianschool.com.

FEED THE CAMEL: Enjoy an after-work meal under the canopy of shady trees during the summertime food truck event. The midweek gathering takes place from 5 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. on Wednesdays through Sept. 6, outside of the McKinley Arts & Culture Center, 925 Riverside Drive. Visit www.facebook.com/ feedthecamel.

FOOD TRUCK FRIDAYS: Get the weekend off to a good start with dinner and music in the park during the annual food truck event, which features more than 40 rotating gourmet food,

craft desserts, beer, wine and mixed-drink vendors. Bring a blanket or chair and relax on the grass while enjoying live music. Kids can also burn off some energy in the playground or take a ride on the train around the park. The fun takes place from 4 to 9 p.m. on Friday nights, June 2-Aug. 25, at Idlewild Park, 1900 Idlewild Drive. Call 775-825-2665, or visit www.facebook. com/RenoStreetFood.

HIGH SIERRA MUSIC FESTIVAL: The fourday festival features a mix of national and international acts across multiple genres, including bluegrass, roots rock, folk, jazz, country and blues. This year’s lineup features Thievery Corporation, moe., a Rob Garza DJ set, Ron Artis II & The Truth, Polyrhythmics, Jerry's Middle Finger, New Monsoon, Del McCoury Band, The Infamous Stringdusters and many others. Attendees can camp; participate in playshops, yoga sessions or kids’ activities; and shop a variety of arts, crafts and food vendors during the event. The festival runs Thursday, June 29, through Sunday, July 2, at the Plumas Sierra County Fairgrounds, 204 Fairground Road, in Quincy, Calif. Festival passes are $30-$450, with separate vehicle and RV passes ranging from $40-$275. Visit www. highsierramusic.com.

HOT AUGUST NIGHTS: The 36th annual celebration of classic cars and rock ’n’ roll starts off in Virginia City with the official kick-off event on Friday and Saturday, July 28-29, featuring free live music, a poker run, cruises, a celebrity show ’n’ shine and a display of hundreds of classic cars along C Street. The festivities continue Aug. 1-6 with a weeklong celebration featuring thousands of classic cars, nightly cruises, drag races, show ’n’ shine competitions, swap meet, the MAG Auctions car auction, live music and more at various locations in Reno and Sparks. Admission is free to most events. Call 775-356-1956, or visit hotaugustnights.net.

LAKE TAHOE CONCOURS D’ELEGANCE: The centerpiece of Wooden Book Week, the 49th annual showcase features some the world’s most well-preserved and restored wooden boats, as well as celebrates Lake Tahoe’s connection to the vintage watercraft. This year’s theme focuses on the wooden boats of the 1960s. Passes include access to the docks to view the exhibitor boats, food and drink, shopping, live jazz music and silent auction. Tickets are $40 for a one-day pass and $50 for a two-day pass, and $50-$250 for upgrades. Admission is free for kids age 12 and

younger. The event runs from 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., Friday, Aug. 11; and 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., Saturday, Aug. 12, at Obexer's Boat Company, 5300 W. Lake Blvd., Homewood. Visit laketahoeconcours.com.

LAKE TAHOE SHAKESPEARE FESTIVAL: The festival returns for its 51st season with the mainstage production of the musical comedy Little Shop of Horrors, along with its Showcase Series featuring dance performances and classical, jazz and rock concerts, June 30-Aug. 21. Little Shop of Horrors will run on select Tuesdays through Sundays at 7:30 p.m. The Young Shakespeare hour-long, interactive adaptation of Shakespeare’s comedy As You Like It will be performed on selected dates in July and August at Sand Harbor State Park. The Showcase Series events will start at 7:30 p.m. on most Mondays and some Tuesdays, July 10-Aug. 21. Tickets are $17-$75 for gallery seating and $105-$40 for premium seats or table seating. A Nevada State Parks Entrance Pass ($10-$15) is required to gain access to and park at Sand Harbor. Performances take place on the William Edward Trepp Stage at Sand Harbor State Park, 2005 Highway 28, Incline Village. Call 800-7474697, or visit laketahoeshakespeare.com.

NEVADA STATE FAIR: Take the family out for some good, old-fashioned fun in the state capital. Dating back to 1874, Nevada’s state fair features thrill rides and games, food vendors and plenty of carnival fare, including cotton candy, funnel cakes and other treats, contests, activities, live music and other entertainment. The events kicks off on Thursday, June 1, and runs through Sunday, June 4, at Mills Park, 1111 E. William St., Carson City. Fair hours are 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. Admission is free, but you must purchase tickets for carnival rides. There is free parking at Mills Park and Carson High School, 1111 N. Saliman Road. Call 775-400-1102, or visit nevadastatefair.org.

NORTHERN NEVADA PRIDE PARADE AND FESTIVAL: The area’s largest LGBTQ+ celebration kicks off with a parade featuring floats, marching groups and other participants traveling down Virginia Street from Fourth Street to Court Street in downtown Reno. The festival immediately follows with a day of musical performances, visual art, vendors, community and pride. The parade starts at 10 a.m., Saturday, July 22. The festival takes place from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. at Wingfield Park, 2 S. Arlington Ave. Festival admission is a $10 suggested donation.

Hot August Nights will bring the crowds to Reno Aug. 1-6.

Photo/David Robert

Proceeds benefit the programming and nonprofit efforts of the local LGBTQ+ community center, Our Center. Visit www. northernnevadapride.org.

RAGECON: Play your favorite board games, card games, dice games, miniature games and role-playing games during the three-day tabletop gaming convention. The expo is open to all ages and features exhibitors, tournaments, a game-exchange swap meet, games for kids ages 12 and younger, a cosplay contest, special guests and more. The event is open from noon to 1 a.m., Friday, June 30; 8 a.m. to 1 a.m., Saturday, July 1; and 8 a.m. to 6 p.m., Sunday, July 2, in the Convention Center at the Nugget Casino Resort, 1100 E. Nugget Ave., Sparks. Admission badges are $35$150. Visit www.ragecon.com.

RENO ALOHA FESTIVAL: The music and culture of Hawaii comes to downtown Reno during the annual event, which includes hula dancers, traditional music, island food, arts and crafts, cultural workshops and more. The festival is open from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m., Saturday, Aug. 19, at Wingfield Park Amphitheater, 2 S. Arlington Ave. Admission is free. Visit www.renoalohafestival.com.

RENO BASQUE FESTIVAL: The 56th annual celebration of Basque culture and heritage features traditional music, improvisational poetry in the Basque language Euskera, folk dances, weightlifting and woodchopping exhibitions, a weight-carrying competition and a children’s bota-drinking event. Food and drinks will be available for purchase. Admission is free. The event festival takes place from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., Saturday, July 15, at the Neil Road Recreation Center and Multipurpose Room, 3925 Neil Road. Call 775-762-3577, or visit renobasqueclub.org.

RENO CHALK ART & MUSIC FESTIVAL: More than 150 chalk artists will turn ordinary pavement into a work of art while competing for a variety of awards. The three-day event features live art installations, live music, food and drink experiences, local art and craft shops and a Kids Zone. Tickets are $10 for a threeday pass and $40 for festival entry plus the craft beer and hard seltzer tasting. Admission is free for kids age 17 and younger. The event takes place FridaySunday, Aug. 25-27, in the west parking lot of the Atlantis Casino Resort Spa, 3800 S. Virginia St. Call 775-825-4700, or visit atlantiscasino.com/entertainment/musicevents/chalk-art.

RENO GARLIC FEST: Reno Food Systems and the Be the Change Project present the fifth annual celebration of the pungent bulb. The event features garlicky food and garlic products for sale, educational demonstrations, arts and crafts vendors, kids’ activities, live music and more. The event runs from 3:30 to 8 p.m., Saturday, July 29, at Dick Taylor Park, 1140 Beech St. Visit www.renofoodsystems.org/ garlicfest.

RENO PUNK ROCK FLEA MARKET: Smash cars, make stuff, swap clothes and enjoy a weekend of loud, punk music by 16 local and traveling bands at this all-ages, DIY party, which includes food trucks, beer and more than 100 vendors selling books, art, vinyl and other items. There’s also an interactive kids section complete with drag story time. The fun takes place from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., Saturday and Sunday, July 15-16, at Great Basin Brewing Co. Taps & Tanks, 1155 S. Rock Blvd. The ticket price was still pending at the time of deadline, but kids under age 12 can get in for free. Visit www.rprfm.org.

RENO RIVER FESTIVAL: Head downtown for the city’s annual celebration of outdoor adventure and fun on the Truckee River. The kickoff to the summer events season features live music on two stages, food and drink, local craft beer and hard seltzers, a vendor village, a festival scavenger hunt, the Reno River Roll, the RRF Cornhole Championship and the brand-new Great Reno River Rally. Festival hours are 11 a.m. to 8 p.m., Friday, June 9; 10 a.m. to 9 p.m., Saturday, June 10; and 10 a.m. to 7 p.m., Sunday, June 11, at Wingfield Park, 2 S. Arlington Ave. Entry fee is $10 and admission is free for kids age 17 and younger. Call 775-851-4444, or visit renoriverfestival.com.

RENO ROCKABILLY RIOT: The 13th annual celebration of hot rod cars and rockabilly culture returns to the Reno-Sparks area for a weekend of hot rods, a burnout contest, a tattoo expo and contest, a pin-up contest, live music and more. The free event takes place on Thursday, July 6, through Saturday, July 8, at Victorian Square, along Victorian Avenue in downtown Sparks. There will also be a burlesque show, Beautiful Anarchy, which will start at 9 p.m., Saturday, July 8, at the Nugget Casino Resort, 1100 Nugget Ave. Tickets are $25. Call 775-291-5008, or visit abepg.com.

RENO RODEO: Dubbed the “Wildest, Richest Rodeo in the West,” the 104th annual event includes a cattle drive, competitions, a kids’ rodeo, carnival rides and more, on Thursday, June 15, through Saturday, June 24. Many rodeo events have already sold out, but remaining tickets for a few open dates are $12-$21 and will only be released for sale on the day of the rodeo on a first-come, first-served basis. Brothers Osborne will perform at the K-BULL 98.1 FM Reno Rodeo Kickoff Concert at 7 p.m., Wednesday, June 14. Tickets for the concert are $55 in advance and $65 on day of show. The rodeo takes place at the Reno-Sparks Livestock Events Center, 1350 N. Wells Ave. Call 775-329-3877, or visit renorodeo.com.

SIERRA NEVADA LAVENDER & HONEY

FESTIVAL: The sixth-annual event celebrates all things lavender and honey. There will be demonstrations and educational exhibits by lavender growers and bee keepers, arts and crafts booths, food made with lavender and honey, live music and more, from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., Sunday, July 9, at Idlewild Park, 1900 Idlewild Drive. Admission is free. No pets,

except service dogs, will be allowed on the festival grounds. Call 775-250-1339, or visit www.lavenderandhoneyfest.com.

SILVER AGE COMIC CON: The pop culture and comic convention is a family-friendly event that celebrates comic books, movies, fantasy and sci-fi, superheroes, collectibles and more. Special guests scheduled to appear include A.J. Buckley, Reb Brown, Brian A. Prince, David Cheung, Nancy Anne Ridder and Grey DeLisle Griffin, among other actors, authors and artists. The event is open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., Saturday, July 8, at the Reno-Sparks Convention Center, 4590 S. Virginia St. Admission is $15 in advance and $20 at the door. Kids age 12 and younger get in free with a paying adult. Visit www. silveragecomiccon.com.

STAR-SPANGLED SPARKS: Celebrate Independence Day with arts and crafts booths, food and drink vendors, live entertainment and a fireworks display shot off the rooftops of the Nugget Casino Resort. The fun begins at 4 p.m., Tuesday, July 4, along Victorian Avenue in downtown Sparks. The fireworks show starts after 9:45 p.m. (wind conditions permitting). Admission is free. Visit www. cnty.com/nugget.

STREET VIBRATIONS SPRING RALLY: The 13th annual motorcycle celebration condenses the elements of the larger Fall Rally into one weekend. There will be motorcycle shows, live entertainment, poker runs, the Good Vibrations Slow Bike Races and more than 80 vendors selling motorcycle gear and related items. The motorcycle rally takes place Friday through Sunday, June 2-4, along the Neon Line District in downtown Reno, and at venues in Carson City and Virginia City. Admission is free for most events. Call 775-329-7469, or go to roadshowsreno.com/sv_spring.php.

TRUCKEE TAHOE AIR SHOW & FAMILY FESTIVAL: The air show features aerial performances, and military and experimental aircraft on static display, as well as a STEM expo and family festival with live music, a puppet show, carnival games and more. The event is open from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., Saturday, June 24, at the Truckee Tahoe Airport, 10356 Truckee Airport Road, Truckee. Admission and parking are free, but attendees must register in advance online. Call 530-5874119, or go to www.truckeetahoeairshow. com for more information.

The Reno River Festival, an unofficial local kickoff to the summer-events season, happens June 9-11.

Photo/David Robert

Responses wanted

The Lilley Museum at UNR has turned its second-floor gallery into a space for interaction, feedback

The Lilley Museum at the University of Nevada, Reno, looks a little different.

The glass cases are gone for now, and the mood of the second-floor gallery, formerly one of quiet elegance, is all-out cheerful. The new decor—including tables set with writing supplies, Kelly green ballot boxes mounted to the walls, and carpet tiles with an elementary-school color scheme—make it clear that the museum is encouraging a high level of audience participation. This experiment is called the Lilley Co-Lab, and the gallery’s new look has a mission behind it: Through October, the Lilley staff wants to learn everything it can about what people want in a museum.

“I want this place to be beloved and useful,” said Stephanie Gibson, the Lilley’s curator and director since February. “I want folks to come here and know that this place is for them. I want them to spend time and share their thoughts.” She pointed out that people can write notes on a tablet or by hand.

“I’m hoping that over time, this place looks messy and overrun with content,” she said. “I want Post-its. I want responses. I want constant movements.”

Museums everywhere have tried to be more

accessible and inclusive in recent years, and there’s a particular emphasis on trying to diversify their audiences and better reflect their communities. Nevada’s art museums have tried various approaches. In 2017, the Barrick Museum at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, began offering free bus transportation to Clark County schoolchildren. The Nevada Museum of Art has mounted retrospectives of major Great Basin Indigenous artists and—in a pandemic-necessitated move that worked so well, they stuck with it—offers teacher education statewide via Zoom.

At the Lilley, the approach is assertively hands-on. On a blue wall, next to a handful of portraits, there are prompts to ask whether the people in these pictures look like you. There’s a selfie station and a craft table where you can make your own likeness. On a red wall, the curation of a handful of paintings has been crowdsourced. A few visitors (including a 6-year-old who liked a picture of a hot dog in a bun bridging a red-rock canyon) have selected their favorites; the display will grow as others make their own choices from a wall-mounted tablet.

On a maroon wall, a hand-painted map of Reno serves as a tool to collect demographic data, both hard and soft: “Where are you from?”

“Where would you rather be?” “Describe Reno in one word.” Emoji stickers are available for anyone who’d like to post a “smile” or “huh?” next to a piece of artwork.

Other institutions are collaborating on the Lilley Co-Lab, too. Brushfire, UNR’s art and literary magazine, is working on an installation based on personal objects lent by the editorial board and contributors. The Holland Project found local artists to make original works in response to pieces from the Lilley’s permanent collection. (The juxtapositions are delightful; Nathaniel Benjamin’s 2022 print makes a lot of sense next to a Toulouse-Lautrec from 1896. Sara Paschall’s 2022 acrylic painting picks up a conversation where a 2019 Shepard Fairey print left off.) And Gibson plans to invite local art and culture groups to hold their own events in the space.

“This is a really incredible opportunity to gather data on who we serve, and who we need to serve, and who we’re missing,” Gibson said. She hopes that the Co-Lab will prompt people to think about how curators and museums go about telling stories about a community.

“I think we’ve just changed a lot in the past 20 to 30 years—how we show art from

Left: In collaboration with the Holland Project, the Lilley placed original works by local artists like Nathaniel Benjamin and Sara Paschall alongside works from the museum’s collection by artists such as Toulouse-Lautrec and Shepard Fairey. Below: The Lilley Museum’s Co-Lab installation asks visitors for data and ideas. Photos/Kris Vagner

different parts of the world, art from Indigenous artists,” she said. “I think (the goal is) to continually interrogate the way we have labels, the amounts of information we put on them, and the type of vocabulary and language we use that’s either inclusive or exclusive. And then, of course, the artists who we’re representing on the walls as well—how diverse and how encompassing their stories are.”

Come October, the Co-Lab will be taken down. The Lilley staff plans to use all the data they gather through the project to inform future exhibitions. But for the time being, Gibson said, “This is a democracy.”

The Lilley Museum’s second floor will be the interactive Lilley Co-Lab through October. The museum is located in the University Arts Building on the University of Nevada, Reno, campus. Parking is available at the Whalen Parking Garage on North Virginia Street. Hours are noon to 4 p.m., Tuesday through Saturday; admission is free. Visit www.unr.edu/lilley for more information. This article was produced by Double Scoop, Nevada’s visual arts publication. Read more at www.doublescoop.art.

‘Activating space’

The former home of Masque restaurant, at 229 N. Virginia St., is now graced with a mural. It’s the first artwork completed as part of the Downtown Reno Partnership’s Vacant Storefront Beautification Initiative.

The partnership worked with property owner Jamy Keshmiri and artist Iain Harrison to complete the mural—measuring 7.5 feet by 30 feet—using bright, vibrant colors.

The murals are a way to “activate the space and draw attention to the location,” said Neoma Jardon, executive director of the partnership. “By enhancing the aesthetic appeal of our downtown storefronts and activating the space, we are creating a more inviting and attractive environment while drawing the attention of potential tenants.”

More murals are planned downtown this summer.

Photo by David Robert

TASTE OF THE TOWN TASTE OF THE TOWN

Happenings

The fourth annual Reno Food and Drink Week, a 12-day celebration of Reno’s eclectic food and drink scene, takes place June 5-16. Participating restaurants and vendors will offer prix-fixe menus, drink flights and/or specialty food and drink items available only during the event period. A portion of proceeds will be donated to local charities. For a full list of participants and menus, visit www. renofoodanddrinkweek.com.

The Sierra Arts Foundation’s next Sip and Screen event takes place Friday, June 2, and will feature Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse. Attendees meet at 6 p.m. at the Sierra Arts Foundation, 17 S. Virginia St., in Reno, for bites from Wild River Grille and drinks from Coffee and Comics before walking to the Century Riverside 12 for a private screening of the film. Guests are encouraged to dress as their favorite Marvel Comics character. Get tickets for $30 at sierraarts.org.

Food Truck Friday kicks off for the season on June 2 in Idlewild Park, 1800 Idlewild Drive, in Reno. With more than 40 vendors, Food Truck Friday is one of the largest food-truck gatherings in the nation. The event runs 4 to 9 p.m., every Friday through Aug. 25. Learn more at www.facebook.com/RenoStreetFood.

The 26th annual BBQ, Blues and Brews festival takes place Friday and Saturday, June 16 and 17, outside of The Row on South Virginia Street. Festival food will be available at Gregg’s BBQ Pit, including St. Louis-style barbecue ribs, smoked beef brisket, pulled pork and more. Guests can also enjoy a variety of brews and beverages from more than 50 microbreweries, and participate in a beer olympics event. Details at www.caesars. com/the-row-reno.

Carnival-food fans, rejoice—the Reno Rodeo, aka the “wildest, richest rodeo in the West,” is back in town June 15-24 for its 104th year. Get your fill of funnel cake, loaded fries and more while supporting one of Reno’s longest running annual events; renorodeo.com.

Summer is (almost) here, which means it’s time for the Margarita Crawl on Saturday, June 10. The event starts at noon at The Eddy, at 16 S Sierra St., in Reno and continues throughout downtown until 6 p.m. Buying a cup for $10 means $4 margaritas and beers at participating locations, with access to extras. For more information, head to crawlreno.com/event/margarita.

Noble Pie Parlor is offering provisions

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Classic on the rocks

The Loving Cup keeps the dream of the early 2000s dance bar alive

Few locations in Reno have stood the test of time in the bar industry like the corner of California Avenue and Plumas Street. For almost two decades, people have known they can count on showing up on Saturday night to drink and dance the night away.

The Loving Cup is the most recent of the three consecutive bars that have inhabited 188 California Ave., and it will be celebrating its ninth year this year. Keeping a business—especially one whose rhythms vibrate at the frequency of youthful energy—open for nine years is no easy task.

I sat down with one of The Loving Cup’s owners, Pete Barnato, to talk about what it takes to keep the dream of the early 2000s dance bar alive.

Music has always been at the heart of The Loving Cup; heck, the name of the joint comes from the classic Rolling Stones song. Bars focusing on music programming got

hit doubly hard during and after the pandemic shutdowns, but as people slowly inched their way out of their homes and returned to bars, the venue started filling up.

“We are returning to the original vibe we intended,” Barnato said. “We lost a lot in that period, but we learned a lot, and one of the things we learned was that we had a unique identity in Reno.”

Bringing back the energy and fun of a venue like The Loving Cup can be challenging, but Barnato feels they have their groove back. One of the hallmarks of The Loving Cup is the highly curated list of acts that come to play live. Bands like Death Valley Girls, which would play 1,200-person venues, stop in Reno to play at the intimate bar, with ticket prices that sometimes go as low as $5.

“It’s special for us,” Barnato said. “It’s the vibe; many of the bands, we have supported from the beginning. Right after they leave, these bands are booking back into Reno as

| BY MICHAEL MOBERLY

soon as possible.”

While music may be the lead singer at The Loving Cup, the drinks will always be the rhythm section. The back bar is an eclectic mixtape of highly curated spirits, esoteric canned beers and dive-bar classics.

“We want to run this like a high-end dive bar—consistent, simple and very well done,” Barnato said with pride. You can enjoy a glass of WhistlePig Black Prince with a can of Hamm’s while listening to Reno’s longestrunning jazz night.

The future is bright for The Loving Cup, which is now open seven days a week. With the addition of late-night food options from the new Satisfaction Pizza, crowds have even more reasons to stop and boogie. New musical acts, familiar vinyl DJs and special events like vintage markets all keep the energy going.

“You are constantly tweaking and progressing—but you always have your sound,” Barnato said.

The party rages on at The Loving Cup.

Photo/ David Robert

| BY MARC TIAR

TASTE OF THE TOWN TASTE OF THE TOWN

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DIY beer

Once upon a time, all beer-brewing was homebrewing. In Sumerian and ancient Egyptian times, something beer-like might have even been considered a household staple.

Over time, beer became a commodity, and then it became an industrial product. Then things came full circle: Some drinkers, tired of mass-produced industrial beer, decided to make their own at home.

It doesn’t take much to learn the basics of taking grain, hops and yeast, and turning it into beer; the process and science has been documented for centuries.

Karen Bates, proprietor of The Reno Homebrewer, at 535 E. Fourth St., quotes her father who founded the store: “There are three skills to homebrewing—boiling, sanitizing and waiting. If you can do those, you can make good beer.”

But now that all sorts of excellent beer is readily available literally almost everywhere, why go to the effort?

Mark Smith, president of local homebrew club Washoe Zephyr Zymurgists, describes the appeal: “I find that brewing beer combines both (art and science). It takes science to make beer, but homebrewing also allows me to incorporate

artistic creativity in what I make. There are so many possibilities of flavor, profiles and combinations in making beer.”

As with any hobby, people tend to seek out their fellow practitioners; people are social animals, after all. In the world of homebrewing, the local supply stores and clubs are fundamental elements of the community— and Northern Nevada is no exception.

The Reno Homebrewer (renohomebrewer. com) has been the Reno area’s main source for homebrew equipment, supplies and expertise for 37 years. Karen Bates, who handles the day-to-day operations of the shop, has grown up alongside the homebrewing scene in our area. Despite competition from online retailers, she continues to advocate for the value of a local brick-and-mortar store.

“You’re not going to ship a 50-pound bag of grain from Amazon and save any money,” she said. “Even if we can’t compete on prices of everything, it forces us to have tremendous inventory.”

The only local competition in recent memory, a homebrew supplier in Sparks called BrewChatter, closed suddenly in March. Carson City area homebrewers have been served by their own shop, Just Brew It (justbrewit. beer), at 1214 N. Carson St., since 2010.

By the time The Reno Homebrewer was opening for business, there were enough local homebrewers to form a club, the aforementioned Washoe Zephyr Zymurgists. Homebrew clubs, besides offering opportunities for camaraderie and social gatherings with fellow brewers, are a valuable resource for ideas, feedback and constructive criticism.

“I think it’s very beneficial for homebrewers to be part of that social group,” Smith said. “… I enjoy sharing what I create in my brewing with others and getting their feedback … talking with them and listening to their ideas and tasting the wonderful concoctions that they have created.”

Recent years have seen the birth and growth of additional groups, including the High Desert Brewgade (primarily in Sparks) and 395 Brewers in Carson City.

Following typical homebrew-club practices, the Brewgade “meets at local craft breweries, tap rooms or members’ homes once a month,” said board member Buster Dumbleton. “We have people’s-choice clubbrewer competitions, educational sessions, homebrew bottle sharing … and, at times, guest speakers.”

All three clubs primarily use Facebook to share information on meetings, becoming a member and events.

The real time to shine for any homebrewer is in competitions. While there is a large national competition, with a multitude of others around the country, in our area, Just Brew It holds an annual competition they call Thirsty Boy. The High Desert Brewgade alternates annual hosting duties with a Las Vegas club for the Nevada State Homebrew Championship. Experienced and certified judges blindly evaluate and score entries, and they award medals for the winning beers—a proud achievement for any homebrewer.

You might assume that an explosion in homebrewing has taken place along with the growth of craft beer, “foodie” culture and the Etsy/maker ethos. Sadly, Bates described the opposite; she says it’s been a hobby in decline for years now, both locally and nationally. The generation of beer-lovers that started homebrewing, because the market didn’t offer what they wanted, is starting to hang up their equipment, and many younger drinkers don’t see the need: With so much good beer available to purchase, why make your own?

Regardless, the brewing spirit lives on. The homebrewers’ mantra was coined by one of the founding fathers of American homebrewing, Charlie Papazian: “Relax, don’t worry, have a homebrew.” In the end, whether it’s a creative outlet, a science project or for fun, it’s just beer.

for your pups! Proceeds from both the Pupperoni Fries (made from meat, grains and other carefully selected components, paired with cooked fries to make a dog-safe dish) and K9 Brewing’s “Paws Pilsner” (nutritious bone broth) will be donated to the SPCA of Northern Nevada. The Midtown location (777 S. Center St., Suite 100) will have both options while the Summit Mall location (13979 S. Virginia St., No. 505) will only have Pupperoni Fries; noblepieparlor.com.

Openings + Closings + Shifts

The Juicy’s Giant Hamburgers at 301 S. Wells Ave., in Reno, is closing up shop after decades at the location. The owner told the local daily the restaurant had lost its lease. The South McCarran Boulevard location (and a Sparks location with different owners) will remain open; juicysburgers.net.

Reno is getting two new concepts from renowned chef Gordon Ramsay: Ramsay’s Kitchen and Ramsay’s Fish and Chips, both at the Silver Legacy. Ramsay’s Kitchen will feature worldly fare, while Ramsay’s Fish and Chips will offer British-centric food in a fast-casual setting. Both restaurants are slated to open late 2023; www.caesars.com/ silver-legacy-reno

Lo-Bar Social is replacing what was once Matador Lounge (previously St. James Infirmary) at 445 California Ave. Owners Missy and Josh Callen—the partnership behind Blind Dog Tavern, The Hideout Lounge and Poor Devil Saloon— intend for the main bar space to be called the “Lo-Bar” with the rooftop deck being the “Hi-Bar.” Search for the bar on Facebook for updates.

Virtual food hall Vistro has taken over the former Taste of Chicago location at 180 E First St., in Reno. Created by UNR alums Tristen Houston and Derek Sornson, Vistro—once a delivery and takeout-only concept—offers more than 10 restaurant options for customers to choose from, and will soon have riverside patio seating. Details at ordervistro.com.

Shanty Dolan’s, at 211 Keystone Ave., is partnering with local cheese and specialty-goods shop The Wheyfarer to offer guests cheese and charcuterie boxes. The boxes will include a variety of meat, cheese, jam, nuts and other goodies; www.shantydolans.com.

Have local food, drink or restaurant news or information? Email me at foodnews@renonr.com!

—Maude Ballinger

Despite a decline in popularity, local homebrewers keep on keeping on

Karen Bates pours grains at The Reno Homebrewer. Photo/David Robert

Hues for you

Rosés come from various grapes and different production methods—but they all can be delicious

If I asked you to use one word to describe a rosé wine, what word would you use? Sweet? Pink? Acidic? Light? Summer? French? White zin? Favorite? Whatever you say, you will be both correct and incorrect—because rosé wines come in numerous varieties.

There are three methods used to produce rosé wines: the maceration method, the saignée method and the blending method.

Maceration is the most common method. The winemaker takes red grapes and processes them as if they are making a red wine, but removes the skins after the juice has achieved the desired depth of

color. The amount of time the juice remains in contact with the skins varies from two to 20 hours. These maceration times produce wines ranging from the very pale rosés from Provence, France, to deeply colored rosés with richer flavors.

The saignée (“san-yay”) method is a byproduct of red winemaking. The winemaker takes red grapes and processes them to make a red wine; a short time after the grapes are crushed, the winemakers remove roughly 10 percent of the juice. This process allows the remaining juice to have more contact with the grape skins, creating a concentrated red wine. The juice that is removed, the saignée (which means “to

Shannon DeDora, the wine director Blackrock Wine Company, on rosés: “I like to find ones that come from fun wine varietals that produce juicy red wines. Those usually translate to great, fresh and fruity rosé.”

Photo/David Robert

bleed”), is used to make a rosé. This is a rare method in most regions, but it’s common in Napa and Sonoma, where they use this method to create deep, rich, concentrated red wines. The blending method is the least common with still rosés, and is more common with (very expensive) sparkling wines produced in the Champagne region of France. This method involves adding a small amount of red wine into a much larger amount of white to create the desired rosé color.

Regardless of the method used, rosé is a unique and distinct wine style that comes in many different hues and flavors. I asked Shannon DeDora, the wine director Blackrock Wine Company, what about she likes about rosés over white wines.

“You’re getting a more concentrated wine with more character,” she said. “So you get those great dry notes of cherry, raspberries, strawberries—those things that make you think of a summer garden, maybe summer fruit. … My rosé philosophy is to always seek out rosé. I like to find ones that come from fun wine varietals that produce juicy red wines. Those usually translate to great, fresh and fruity rosé.” Great advice!

The palest rosés are generally from Provence and are produced with grenache, cinsault, syrah and mourvèdre grapes. These rosés are pale and pink-hued, with aromas of strawberries, watermelon and roses. On the palate, they are crisp, dry and fruity, with a salty minerality.

Rosés a shade darker are often made from pinot noir grapes. These rosés have many of the same aromas and flavors as a rosé from

Provence, with the earthiness you would expect from a pinot.

Rosés from tempranillo grapes tend to have a pale watermelon hue. Along with the richer color comes richer and spicier herbaceous flavors that accompany the berry and melon notes we expect in a light rosé. These are some one of my favorites.

The next darker-hued rosé has, in many circles, a bad reputation. White zinfandel is the name given to rosés made from zinfandel. It’s a bright-pink rosé that is almost always off-dry (slightly sweet), with 3-5 grams of residual sugar. The aromas and flavors are like strawberry and raspberry jam—bright fruits with a dessert sweetness.

Cabernet sauvignon rosés have a deep ruby-red hue and flavors approaching those of a red wine. These flavors include cherries, black currants, leather and pepper. Cabernet sauvignon rosés often have more acidity, due to the fact that the wine never sees any time in oak, like red wines do.

With all the great rosés available on the market, I asked DeDora if she had any favorites. “Three that I really love right now are grenache, cabernet franc and Zweigelt,” she said. “Zweigelt is a grape from Austria that has low tannins and peppery notes that you can taste in the rosé.”

Blackrock Wine Company is located at 6135 Lakeside Drive, Suite 111, in Reno, and offers craft beer and wine by the bottle and glass, as well as small plates and charcuterie. I asked DeDora what people should look for when buying rosés.

“Anything imported—French, Spanish or Italian,” she said. “Generally, those will always be solid quality no matter what, because they’re made with purpose. From a price point, anything $25 bucks and below, you will find a solid bottle.”

Remember when I asked you to describe rosé with one word? Yes, it was an unfair question, although there is one word that works, in my opinion: delicious.

Play it again

Recycled Records leaves Midtown and reopens at its new location on Kietzke

Recycled Records is a Reno institution. As Reno’s stewards of the analog era in the digital age, the shop with used records, CDs, DVDs and cassettes has occupied seven different locations over almost 50 years, witnessing the rise and fall (and rise again) of various musical genres and mediums alike.

On May 19, Recycled Records officially opened at its new location at 4048 Kietzke Lane, having left its iconic space in the heart of Midtown after 11 years.

“I’ve been sitting with scrap paper for months figuring out where to put everything and make it as spacious as I could,” said co-owner Eric Jacobson. “The last thing I wanted was it to be crammed like the last place.”

Over the past few decades, Jacobson has made the transition from patron of Recycled Records, to manager for 28 years, to current part-owner. An avid collector and self-described “music nut,” Jacobson decided to take up the mantle alongside fellow employees Kyle Howell and Mike McDonald when longtime owner Paul Doege retired in 2019.

“When I was 5, I was already collecting records,” Jacobson said. “I was already insanely obsessed with music. When I was 13, my grandparents lived a few blocks from the old store on Wells Avenue—that was the original store—and I met Paul. When I was 18, I started working for Musicland corporation, and then I started doing part-time with Paul on Friday nights, which was a conflict of interest. And I have zero regrets.”

In 2012, Recycled Records moved from a space where it had been for 24 years to a location on Virginia Street in Midtown. It soon became a fixture of the burgeoning smallbusiness scene, and Jacobson said they reveled in the foot traffic that the area provided, as well as a counterculture element that made the community feel inclusive and genuine.

Over the years, however, they witnessed changes to the neighborhood—like the widening of the sidewalks in 2020, for example, which Jacobson said he loved as a business owner. However, the wider sidewalks were coupled with a new traffic median, meaning the lanes became much narrower, which Jacobson felt increased the potential danger to both pedestrians and parked cars.

“I mean, there used to be parking, and it’s just become more and more restrictive,” said Joe Wilson, a staff member at Recycled Records for the past five years. “So what used to just be free street parking nearby became one-hour, twohour parking.”

Another big challenge, said Jacobson, was a notable increase in homeless citizens causing disturbances and damaging property.

“I have nothing but empathy for people who are out in the streets and having a rough time and are mentally ill, and we need to really help them as a society—but you get really burned out on dealing with it every day,” Jacobson said.

The final blow came when the building they were renting came under new management. Jacobson said the investment firm which acquired the space attempted to raise their rent by almost double—a story Jacobson said is becoming more

common as “money” moves into Midtown.

“We really had a lot of good years there,” Jacobson said. “It’s been good to us. I don’t want to come off like I hate Midtown or anything; we’re just kind of kind of burned out on it. I feel like after 12 years, I’m ready to roll.”

The ultimate decision to move came when the owners set foot in their new space on Kietzke Lane, which has higher ceilings, more floor space and better parking than the Midtown sot.

Realistically, Recycled Records could probably operate out of the back of a van and lose little business. For 45 years now, no matter where the shop has been located, its legions of dedicated patrons inevitably seek it out.

“We have a huge clientele that is superdedicated to us,” Jacobson said. “Our customers are the best. I can’t make that any clearer. We expect to take a small hit, but, man, it’s crazy how many thousands of people come in here on a regular basis.”

Recycled Records has defied the promise of the digital age—where the availability of music online would inevitably make physical media obsolete—largely because it operates in a unique confluence of specialty business practice and evolving music culture. Fans of analog music range from hardliners who never bought into Spotify, to serious collectors who spend their off hours crate-digging for a rare pressing, to casual buyers only just learning that music doesn’t need to be in MP3 format.

Jacobson caters to everyone, both offering a fair price on used records and investing in vinyls pressed by more contemporary artists—a practice that’s become more and more common

in recent years. In fact, we exist in a kind of record-buying renaissance, with sales of vinyl records steadily growing from 6.1 million units in 2013 to more than 41 million units in 2021— a trend largely driven by teenagers and young adults, according to a 2021 study by MRC Data.

Jacobson credits the cultural staying power of previous generations of music, as well as the undeniable bump in audio quality for the continued relevance of analog music.

“When we were kids, we would buy our records and go home and sit on our bed and study the gatefold and throw it on and just learn everything about it and just totally indulge in it,” he said. “I think once you hear a record, and you’ve been listening to, like, a bunch of digital downloads that are compressed and stuff, you’re like, ‘Oh my god; that’s what music’s supposed to sound like.’”

To John Snelgrove, a 21-year-old patron who attended the “soft opening” of the new location on May 18, analog music is a recent passion.

“My collection is all CDs pretty much right now,” Snelgrove said. “I’ve yet to get into vinyl. CDs are pretty compact. … I have a small studio apartment, so it’s definitely what works. I think I’m up to, like, 200.”

Snelgrove’s generation remembers VHS and CDs from childhood, even if the heyday of vinyl was before his time. As opposed to the passive consumption that comes from simply pressing play on his phone, physical albums feel like more of a “ritual” that allows him to engage more deeply with the music.

“Let’s say you listen to Fishbone on your phone: Great. I liked it,” Snelgrove said. “But then when you’re able to hold this and look at the album, or while you’re listening to it, reading everything, opening it up, it’s just a whole other experience. It could be nostalgia, but I think there is something about just being present in the experience, for sure.”

As much as listening to a physical album is part of the larger musical experience, so is the act of visiting a record store. Snelgrove splits his musical interests between the classics of his parents’ generation (he credits his dad for passing on his music taste) and contemporary artists who are investing in the physical experience. Recycled Records, he said, satisfies both parts of the equation.

With a steady supply of generational support, a brand-new space and more music to explore every day, Jacobson and Recycled Records plan to keep the hits coming for the foreseeable future.

“I have zero plans to (stop),” he said. “I’m too hyperactive to retire. I can’t sit around.”

Kat, Eric Jacobson and Mike Ward share a laugh at the former Midtown location of Recycled Records, shortly before the move.

Photo/David Robert

Reunion of friends

Debauch-a-Reno celebrates local music and brings punk bands to Reno for the first time

Sticker Guy and Slovenly Recordings have been serving the Reno music scene for decades.

Sticker Guy, since 1993, has been offering high-quality, affordable sticker printing for bands, brands and more. Slovenly Recordings, since 2002, has been a label for Reno bands and beyond. Pete Menchetti is the man behind both of these endeavors, and every few years, he hosts a big festival in Reno, both celebrating the local scene and bringing in touring acts that have been a part of his companies.

Debauch-a-Reno returns in 2023 with two events. Cypress Reno and the Wingfield Park Amphitheater will host the main weekend, happening Friday, June 16, through Sunday, June 18. Then on Friday, July 14, the fun moves to Virginia City, specifically Piper’s Opera House. On the June weekend, bands including the Mummies and the Zeros will team up with local bands like Pussy Velour for a weekend filled with punk, garage, rock ’n’

roll and more.

“The first time we did Debauch-a-Reno was the first time I did a festival in Reno,” Menchetti said during a recent Zoom interview. “It was to celebrate the 15th anniversary of Sticker Guy, the sticker-printing company that we started back in 1993. We had a really good time doing that; that was in 2008. Just six months later, I did it again. Five years later, I realized the 20th anniversary was coming up, so we did another Debauch-a-Reno.”

Menchetti has kept himself busy in between Debauch-a-Reno events. He also runs the We’re Loud Fest, which takes place all over the world.

“We’ve done it in a bunch of different countries, from Vietnam, to Istanbul, to Italy, to Greece, to Puerto Rico, to Mexico—and right now, we’re in The Gambia, Africa, sort of exploring for a possible late-2024 edition down here on this continent,” Menchetti said. “It was actually kind of nice to have 2020 completely off, and then we were back in 2021 with an edition in Mexico, in Puerto Escondido. We

definitely waited; we didn’t rush back into it, and we definitely gave the pandemic the time that it needed.

A lot has changed in Reno since the last Debauch-a-Reno four years ago.

“Hotels cost twice what they did in 2019, which is insane for us, but we’re dealing with it the best we can,” Menchetti said. “Luckily, we have a really great crop of local bands to pick from right now—more local bands that I remember liking in a really long time. We have seven local bands on the bill, and some of those bands are going to be hosting some of the out-of-town bands. The inflated cost of hotels isn’t going to hurt us too badly; it just hurts the people who are coming from other cities, but we might be setting something up for them as well, and connecting them with locals who have couches to crash on and stuff like that.”

In 2018, Debauch-a-Reno brought legendary music act The Mummies to Reno for the first time. The Mummies are returning this year, alongside other punk bands who may never make it to the area otherwise.

“The local crowd in Reno has seen all the local bands before, multiple times, so bringing them something new that they’re excited to see is important,” Menchetti said. “It’s also important to bring people from other cities to Reno. For the last 25 years or whatever, I’ve been basically on the road. I’ve hardly lived in Reno since 2000, so it’s sort of a big reunion of friends from all over the place in Reno, which makes it more fun. Some of them are customers of the sticker company, and some of them are bands from the record label.”

Menchetti said bands on tour often skip Reno due to the prospect of wintry weather.

“It’s pretty risky to plan a stop in Reno anywhere outside of the months of June through August, because you never know when there’s going to be a lot of snow in the mountains,” he said. “If you’re on tour in a big old van, you don’t want to get stuck having to drive through that stuff. After our 2018 event, a band from France who had played our event, which was in April, was leaving and got in an accident in the snow on the way out.”

Sticker Guy has been a huge help for bands trying to get merchandise without breaking the bank; even today, bands can get 250 stickers for around $20.

“I basically dreamt up the sticker company while working at a car wash,” Menchetti said. “I worked at pizza places, and at a car wash when I was a teenager, and I didn’t really want to keep working for other people the rest of my life. I think I’ve had an entrepreneurial spirit since I was pretty young. Even in elementary school, I was selling candy bars. I got into music really young and just always wanted to be involved in it. I played in a couple of bands, but I realized that I wasn’t really that good at it. I had a lot of fun doing it, and that’s what is most important, but I think my strengths are more in organizing and other stuff like that, so I just decided to devote myself to that, to help out bands that I like.

“Right now, there are really a lot of great Reno bands. I don’t know if the festival had something to do with that, but I’d be happy if it did.”

Debauch-a-Reno takes place starting at 2 p.m., Saturday and Sunday, June 17 and 18, at the Wingfield Park Amphitheater, 2 S. Arlington Ave., in Reno. The opening-night party takes place at 8 p.m., Friday, June 16, at Cypress Reno, 761 S. Virginia St. The Virginia City portion takes place at 8 p.m., Friday, July 14, at Piper’s Opera House, 12 B St. Tickets start at $72.45. For tickets or more information, visit sloven.ly/reno.

Debauch-a-Reno organizers Eunice Gonzalez and Peter Menchetti.

“Home Row Truths”—a little typing test, and pinkies out!

By Matt Jones

Across 1. “C’mon, ___ it out!”

5. Graph starter

10. Otherworldly glow

14. Southern cornbread

15. Hard-hit baseball

16. Minute or milligram, e.g.

17. Home clearance event (“Here’s where your ring fingers go …”)

19. Bring down, as a building

20. Came to an end

21. Skiing surface

23. Country singer Musgraves

24. 2006 Nintendo release

25. Egg-shaped

29. Some retired boomers, for short

30. Digital gambling game (“Position your middle fingers right there ...”)

32. All dried out (and anagram of 28Down)

33. Electrician’s tool

34. Turkey

38. “Oh, golly ...”

39. Comic book artists

40. Sound of

contentment

41. Steak and peppers dish (“Let’s get the index fingers back to home position ...”)

43. Obama-era policy, briefly

47. Chihuahua, for one 48. Acne medication brand

49. Hall of Hall and Oates

50. “No question”

52. “___ borealis?! At this time of year ...”

53. Protein building block?

56. 1994 Robin Williams/John Turturro movie (“Now move those index fingers inward ...”)

58. Rank emanation

59. Come after

60. “___ California” (Red Hot Chili Peppers song)

61. “Push th’ Little Daisies” duo 62. Stashed in a new place

63. Those, in San Jose

Down

1. Dots of dust

2. Pretend to be

3. Complete

4. Hints at, like a movie trailer

5. Answered a court

BY MATT JONES

THE LUCKY 13

Brad Bynum

Vocalist/pianist for Elephant Rifle, former ‘RN&R’ editor

Brad Bynum is no stranger to readers of the RN&R. He’s been contributing to the publication since 2002. He was the paper’s arts and culture editor from 2008-2016, and the editor from 2016-2020. On top of some stellar journalism, Bynum has contributed heavily to Reno’s music scene with his band Elephant Rifle, which combines elements of post-punk, noise rock, hardcore and metal into one insane combination. The band’s latest album, Broken Water, is the band’s first release in five years. For more, visit elephantrifle.bandcamp.com.

What was the first concert you attended?

Pearl Jam, Mudhoney and Urge Overkill at the Lawlor Events Center on Dec. 2, 1993.

What was the first album you owned? Megadeth’s Countdown to Extinction, Metallica’s Black Album, and Guns N’ Roses’ Use Your Illusion I and II.

What’s your favorite musical guilty pleasure? As I age, it gets harder and harder for me to separate art from artists. For example, I can’t listen to Kanye West’s stuff anymore, or Michael Jackson’s, but both of those guys have written undeniable songs. It’s tough when you hear one of their great songs, and you can’t help but feel amazing things, but you know they’re horrible people. It’s a little heartbreaking. I love the Smiths but have been annoyed by every public statement Morrissey has made for the last 25 years or so.

What’s your favorite music venue?

charge

6. ___ Majesty the King (title official since May 6)

7. Per team

8. Singer-songwriter McKay

9. Pie crust flavor

10. “So long,” at the Sorbonne

11. Sherlock actress Stubbs

12. Sound of Metal actor Ahmed

13. Had some grub

18. Miss Pym Disposes author Josephine

22. Cottonwood, for one

24. Telegraph 26. “Just pick ___!” (complaint to the tin-eared)

27. Presidential span

28. Scots Gaelic

30. Vice ___

31. Nearly 300-yearold unfinished JeanPhilippe Rameau work, completed and premiering in 2023, e.g.

32. Wave rider

34. Small prevarications

35. Working without ___ (taking risks)

36. Acronymic store name

37. What a flashing yellow arrow may

allow (watching for crossing traffic)

38. Jury ___ (2023 Amazon Freevee series)

40. Playfully mischievous

42. Song that Dolly Parton temporarily reworded as “Vaccine” in 2021

43. Finnish DJ behind the ubiquitous hit “Sandstorm”

44. Candle store features

45. 1993 Broadway flop musical based on a big-nosed Rostand hero

46. “Jagged Little Pill” singer Morissette

49. “No ___” (No Doubt tribute band)

51. Rival of Lyft

52. Like most fine wines

53. Pull behind

54. Praiseworthy poem

55. Opponent

57. Rapa ___ (Easter Island, to locals)

© 2023 Matt Jones

Find the answers in the “About” section at RenoNR.com!

What bands are you listening to right now? Our tour is centered around playing this amazing festival in Minneapolis called the Caterwaul Music Festival. It’s all noise rock, or at least noise-rock-adjacent bands. Some of the bigger bands on the bill include Cherubs, Chat Pile and Flipper, but I’ve been enjoying checking out all the bands on the bill. The Cure, the Grateful Dead, Osees and Roxy Music have been other staples lately, and, of course, the new Spitting Image album rules and is essential listening for anyone who cares about Reno music.

What artist, genre or musical trend does everyone love, but you don’t get? I get sad about the commercial decline of rock music. I love hip hop, and I understand the appeal of EDM and other contemporary genres, but I think rock music can do certain things better than any other genre. (There are other things that are easier accomplished in other genres.) Good rock music can provide incredible moments of musical catharsis, and do that within the context of powerful songwriting. Some other genres can provide musical catharsis, and some other genres can deliver great songs, but to do both at the exact same time? That’s a magical combination.

What musical act, current or defunct, would you most like to see perform live? The Grateful Dead, sometime early on, maybe 1972. Some show with fantastic drugs and a lot of naked hippies.

I saw the Osees at Red Rocks in Colorado a couple of years ago, and it lived up to the hype. Locally, I’m really proud to have been a secondary or tertiary part of what the Holland Project has accomplished.

What’s the one song lyric you can’t get out of your head?

There’s more than one, more like thousands. There are plenty of recurring snippets from great lyricists, like Leonard Cohen, Bob Dylan and David Berman, that pop up in my brain on an hourly, sometimes minute-ly, basis.

What band or artist changed your life? How? A key early one for me was Nirvana. I think In Utero is probably still the foundation of my musical aesthetic.

You have one question to ask one musician. What’s the question, and who are you asking? Stevie Nicks in the 1970s, and I’m asking her to dinner.

What song would you like played at your funeral? More than one song would seem in order. I think a three-day festival would be appropriate.

Figurative gun to your head, what is your favorite album of all time? I don’t negotiate with terrorists. It’s like a 40-way tie, but two that come immediately to mind are Sticky Fingers by the Stones, and Pink Flag by Wire.

What song should everyone listen to right now? Well, I’m here to promote Broken Water, the new Elephant Rifle album, so I’ll say that.

iCan Shine is a nonprofit organization which runs around 100 iCan Bike camps in 35 states, benefiting close to 3,000 people with disabilities each year. They use specialized equipment, a unique teaching method and trained volunteers to teach riders how to balance on a twowheel bike. Research shows that more than 80% of people with autism and 90% of people with Down syndrome never learn to ride a two-wheel bicycle—often because they are never given a chance. Learn more at icanshine.org/ican-bikereno-nv. We recently spoke with Diana Rovetti, a project director at the Nevada Center for Excellence in Disabilities at the University of Nevada, Reno, College of Education, and the local iCan Bike coordinator. About 60-80 volunteers are needed for the upcoming June camp; email rovetti@unr.edu for more information.

How did you get involved in

iCan Bike?

After having a son with Down syndrome in 1998, I made a promise to myself that I would help him to have the best, mostindependent life possible. I really wanted him to know how to ride a bike. Our family struggled with teaching him this important milestone of childhood. While at a conference in Texas, I was introduced to an organization called iCan Shine. They said they could teach kids and adults with disabilities how to ride a bike. As soon as I got back to Reno, I started searching for funding to bring this organization and their iCan Bike camp to Northern Nevada. A couple of years later, in 2013, I held the first iCan Bike camp in Reno.

When and where is the next event?

This year, the Nevada Center for Excellence in Disabilities is hosting the Northern Nevada camp in Gardnerville from June 26-30 at the Douglas County Community and Senior Center. Participants choose one of five 75-minute sessions to attend all five days of camp. There is a fee of $99 for Nevada residents and $199 for non-residents to attend the camp.

How many participants do you expect?

We can accommodate 40 riders in our camp this year. We will have eight riders in each of our five sessions. Riders need to be at least 8 years old and be diagnosed with a disability. They must have a minimum inseam of 20 inches, weigh under 220 pounds, be able to sidestep to both sides, and walk without assistive devices. We also ask that riders attend all five days of camp.

What are your fondest memories of the program over the years?

After 25-year-old Zach Trim took his last lap of the day on his bike at the iCan Bike camp in 2013, he approached me and said, “Thank you for this camp! I am so happy that now I can ride a bike! I don’t have to rely on my mom to take me to work anymore!” That warmed my heart and really gave me a drive to continue to host the camps in Nevada. Every year, on Wednesday of the camp, we start launching riders on two wheels. There are so many happy tears! Every year, that day reminds me why I host the camps, and every year, I vow to do it again the next year!

Diana Rovetti

Local iCan Bike coordinator Diana Rovetti and 9-year-old Angelo Falcon last summer at the iCan Bike camp.