Where I Stand: What some Southern Nevadans are doing and thinking

Friday, Sept. 19, 1997 | 8:58 a.m.

LET'S WRAP UP the business week with some ideas from local folks, their accomplishments, and their views.

NLV Constable Lou Tabat will be hosting the upcoming World Boxing Association's 76th Annual Convention at the Rio Suite hotel-casino. Lou's a big man on the international boxing scene. ... Las Vegan Larry Johnson writes, "Both the president and the leaders in Congress have publicly stated that they are committed to saving the Social Security system. They plan to initiate a bipartisan study to determine how to achieve this goal.

"The first important step is so obvious it can be implemented immediately without the need for study.

"Each month the amount of FICA tax exceeds the payments to Social Security recipients by a considerable sum. These billions of dollars have been going into the general funds of the government. This allows the above-mentioned ladies and gentlemen to spend more than they could without increasing taxes or causing the already massive annual deficit from soaring even higher." ... Then there is Fred Lewis on radio K-news 970-AM describing the actions of Paula Jones' taking the advice of her right-wing public relations friend Susan Carpenter-McMillan. "And where did she get the PR person. She must have been the image builder for George Steinbrenner or Marge Schott. I have not heard advice like that since a PR person told George Custer that moving out West would be good for his military career."

The election of Las Vegan Evelynne Dunn as National Commander of the DAV Auxiliary brings honor to all of us. Her friend Irene Ballis, USA retired, writes "We should be proud to have such a gracious lady in our community. Evelynne is a doer regardless of what task she is involved in and handles it superbly. Not only is she involved in helping veterans' families, she is a volunteer van driver for the LV VA clinic driving veterans to hospitals in California. She also drives veterans families whenever needed in her own personal car when the veteran is unable to because of illness. She is also a volunteer in the center at the LV VA clinic serving refreshments." Not only are Sig and Gina Sakowicz returning to Las Vegas in early October, he will be broadcasting live back to Chicago on radio WPNA 1490-AM starting in November. After Oct. 3 he can be reached by telephone 1-(702)-734-7446 and local fax 1-(702)-794-3524. ... U.S. Marine Capt. Ross Goodman has made his parents Oscar and Carolyn proud of his accomplishments. Ross, a lawyer like his father, is a JAG attorney at Cherry Point, N.C. I have to believe that some Marines are receiving some excellent legal advice. ... Every now and then the names of SUN readers sending letters to the editor make me curious. One letter writer, Orville Goplen, has been writing for years and is about a pure liberal as can be found today. So who is he? Sixty years ago, at the age of 26, his leadership helped change the entire North Dakota higher education system. As a young reporter, according to a recent issue of The Forum newspaper, he was already a ball of fire. That's when he successfully took on one of our nation's most powerful governors, Bill Langer. The newspaper describes Goplen as a farm boy who worked his way through college as a copy boy and obituary writer. It quotes Goplen saying, "I came to school penniless. We were so poor we didn't know what poor was." Later he served overseas in the U.S. Army and then traveled the world for the State Department. He served in Oslo, Reykjavik, Frankfurt, Koblenz, Saigon and Washington for State. In the Army he had served in the Persian Gulf and Chungking, China where he interviewed Madame Sun Yat Sen. The SUN sure has its share of interesting readers and letter writers. ... Russell Williams, probably one of the brightest students I had the good fortune to teach at Basic High School 40 years ago, dropped me a line or two this week. He had read and enjoyed SUN writer Scott Dickensheets' article about the "B" on the western foothills of Henderson. Russ hasn't lost a step when it comes to mental recall of people and events. His sense of humor continues to permeate his speech and writing. Sometime next week his recollections will be in this column. Here's a taste: "Some trivia for you, the class of 1954, which included by sister, Kaye, and my brother, Don, was the first class of students to complete all 12 years of school in Henderson schools. Also Mike, the empty paint can shown in the picture, as a leftover relic from days of yore, was definitely not left by the class of '57.' I would think more in the era or time frame of Frook, Hahn, Trumbo, Schreck, Ullom, Alverson, Cupp, Waddell or maybe even Pantuso. You know what I mean."