Originally, I posted these in 2006. Then I decided to unpost them, but I’m putting them back up so they can be shared by anyone and everyone in the radio news business. Besides it clears one more file from my computer…. Stick with Who, What, Where and When. Avoid Why or How. If a listener…

“I’ll never drive at night again,” 86-year-old Patrick Carnes is heard telling the Nevada Highway Patrol trooper who pulled him over after he passed by too close to him as he stood by a tractor-trailer he had stopped. “I’m only following him because he’s going to Elko,” the elderly man is also heard to say. He…

For the last couple of years I’ve searched for a friend that I went to school with and so far he’s proving very hard to find. I have very scant information, though I’m in touch with his sister, Ina who lives in Colorado. Thomas James Smith was born April 11th, 1960 in West Germany, and has gone by the…

When the two men headed into the desert of southern Nevada in the winter of 1902, they were hoping to strike it rich. They had been present when Paiute Indian prospector Tom Fisherman wandered into Tonopah with gold ore. Fisherman received a ten-dollar grubstake from Jim Butler and Tom Kendall, to find a claim where the rock…

Perhaps it’s hard to spot Trinidad Bay from the ocean in December, or perhaps the brigantine Cameo’s captain needed a refresher course before he began. At any rate, in 1850 the ship’s captain missed the bay and reported back to San Francisco that the bay was “a myth.” His pride must have been stung when…

Harold Del Ponte died January 20, 2013, in Crescent City.  The lifelong Del Norte County resident’s 96 years read like a local history lesson. He was born December 31, 1916, delivered by Dr. Fine, the namesake of the bridge over the Smith River. Raised by Swiss immigrants who homestead 200 acres in Klamath, Harold received all…

Known by its slogan, “We are Canada’s merchants,” the Hudson’s Bay Company is the oldest commercial corporation in North America and one of the oldest in the world. And its reaches extended all the way to Del Norte County. Founded May 2, 1670, it is also in the history books as having once been the…

The Washoe County Library, on South Center Street in Reno, is now listed in the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP.)  Completed in 1966, the library is significant to the history of Reno and represents the city’s interest in and appreciation for art and architecture. The library’s construction came as Reno was moving  from a…

Another of Nevada’s remaining World War II veterans has passed away.  Charles Tremain was born on July 20, 1927 in Yankton, South Dakota and raised in Beatrice, Nebraska. He served in the United States Marine Corps during the Second World War and as a captain during the Korean War. Chuck, as he was known, later…

Jedediah Smith was a mountain man. With the middle name Strong, he epitomized the word. As a fur trader and prolific explorer he survived a grizzly bear mauling and hostile encounters with natives. Born on January 6, 1799 on the East Coast in Jericho, N.Y., he spent the better part of his 32 years looking Westward.…