Letter: Hawthorne not dying

Thursday, March 13, 1997 | 11:59 a.m.

ON a recent visit to Las Vegas my daughter gave me a copy of your Feb. 9, paper which carried a major SUN article on Hawthorne. Although well written by reporter Rachel Levy, it was extremely one-sided.

There was no mention of the fact that Hawthorne is Nevada's All America City candidate in 1997. In the 48-year history of the National Civic League competition, no Nevada community has ever won the coveted prize. Nevada is one of only two states never to win All America City honors.

In the past year, Mineral County has received recognition for its community efforts in the Economic Development Review (Spring '96) titled "Building Social Capital: The Mineral County Nevada Story." On the 15th of this month, David Brancaccio, senior editor of the public radio program "Marketplace," heard over 258 radio stations around the world and Armed Forces Radio, will be in Hawthorne to gather information on our activities for his new book "The Money Line."

There was no mention that, over a period of six months, 640 "citizen hours" were invested in meetings throughout Mineral County to develop The Mineral County Blueprint for the Future: the year 2005.

No mention was made that Mineral County voters passed a $6 million school bond last September as well as special self-assessment to generate more funds for saving Walker Lake and expanding services for our senior citizens.

There was no mention of the new wing at Mount Grant Hospital nor the expansion of the library. The article failed to mention the fact that the community came together to cosponsor the annual Fishing Derby that attracted over 1,200 entries and generated over $250,000 in economic impact.

Even the pictures showed desolation. The wording and selection of topics to be covered made the entire text a negative. At one point it was suggested Hawthorne could become a "ghost town." I did not see any indication of having talked with the positive people about the positive things that are happening.

Again, it was real depressing to read an article written by a professional journalist with such a limited scope of consideration of the community. At a time when things are coming together for us and civic pride, leadership development, economic development, education, and more "user friendly" government are bringing people together as a community ... working hard to receive recognition for what we are doing ... as an All America City, the SUN publishes this doom and gloom article ... shame!

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