‘Pioneer’ spirit on the radio

Scott Dickensheets

Thursday, March 25, 1999 | 9:51 a.m.

Regardless of what the atlas indicates, on the map of national consciousness, Las Vegas is Nevada. Oh, sure, Reno's tucked into a northern corner somewhere, and snowbirds, at least, have heard of Laughlin. The rest: Las Vegas. Everything else is pointless etcetera.

That this etcetera is actually vast, and not nearly as empty as the national consciousness or even Rand McNally might suggest, isn't news. We know the void is filled with stories, legends, people and history. What is surprising is just how full of stories, legends, people and history. Fifty thousand watts of proof beam out every Sunday evening from the Union Plaza hotel-casino, home of KDWN 720-AM, home of "The Pioneer Territory Program."

Mark Edwards, an old Vegas radio hand, hosts the show. Each week he spotlights another tiny dot on the map. Last Sunday: Berlin Ichthyosaur State Park, near Gabbs. Who'd have guessed Nevada had an ichthyosaur attraction not fabricated by a casino company? This Sunday: Belmont, a former mining burg north of Tonopah. Once the seat of Nye County, it's a few warm bodies shy of being a ghost town. But it does have a historic courthouse and other buildings, and the people include one Banjo Bob, a bar musician and one of Edwards' interview subjects this week.

"There's just story after story after story," Edwards says -- no, gushes ; he's a man passionate about his work. "Did you know (boxer) Jack Dempsey lived for a time in Tonopah? He worked as a mucker in the mine, shoveling ore, to keep in shape. He was also a bouncer in a bar. Did you know Goldfield was the largest city in Nevada at one time? It had 40,000 people. Now it's down to a couple 300." Those are the sorts of things that pop up frequently on "The Pioneer Territory Program."

"It's different," Edwards says. "It's the old side of Nevada. I'm learning as I'm going."

The hour-long show emanates at 8 p.m. from a cramped room in the KDWN warren on the Union Plaza's second floor. It's a rudimentary setup, the working equipment nearly as old as the vintage microphones displayed nearby. Edwards has a sometime cohost, Las Vegas travel writer Don Payne, who is frequently away on assignment. Guests from each week's destination sit across a table and field questions; everything's live. "I intend on not having anybody taped," Edwards says. "I like the live reaction. They're right there and we can question them -- and the people can call in and talk to them." At some point, Edwards assumes the persona of "Eddie Elderly." "He comes on and tells you what you can see in all those places."

"Pioneer Territory" refers to one of the six areas -- "territories" -- the Nevada Commission on Tourism divides the state into for administrative purposes. Pioneer covers a great swatch of south central Nevada, from Pahrump to Gabbs to Pioche (excluding Las Vegas), from which the program's subjects will be drawn. The 26 episodes have been funded by a $20,000 grant from the Nevada Commission on Tourism, as a way to acquaint locals and tourists with the visit-worthy aspects of non-Vegas Nevada.

"We're careful to place the money where we think it will really, really help," Chris Chrystal, spokeswoman for the Nevada Commission on Tourism, says. Because KDWN in the evenings has a "clear channel" -- radio parlance meaning extremely powerful signal -- the show is heard from Mexico to British Columbia, from California to New Mexico; lots of potential visitors there.

"I hope it will let people know there's things out here in the rural areas," says Pat Parsons of Hawthorne, chairwoman of the Pioneer Territory. She doesn't mean just visitors; she'd like Las Vegas residents to venture beyond city limits. "They don't have to go to California, Utah and Arizona for their vacations. We want 'em to find the other side of Nevada."

"Everybody is excited," says Goldfield businesswoman Virginia Ridgway, who wrote the grant application that sprung the $20,000 from tourism officials. "It's something that hasn't been tried before. It's almost a history lesson on Nevada in the old days."

The Pioneer program was born at a tourism confab last year when Ridgway overheard Edwards talking to officials about just such a show. She liked the idea, applied her grant-writing expertise -- "I have never been denied a grant," she says -- and the rest is history-oriented radio.

Ridgway was on hand for the first broadcast on March 14 -- a talk with Lt. Gov. Lorraine Hunt and other tourism brass -- and says she was nervous about its fate. Until Edwards opened the phone lines. "The whole thing lit up," she says. "Boy, did I breathe a sigh of relief."

Calls to territory and state tourism officials have apparently stepped up as well. "People are calling and getting into it," Ridgway says. "I really think it's going to snowball."

"(The tourism commission) has been stunned by the amount of calls," Edwards says. "Believe it or not, we're getting a lot of Las Vegas response because it's a good getaway."

There's no solid way to determine how effective the show is in pumping up the territory's tourism business -- any increase can be chalked up to many factors. "Mainly we'll just be asking people," Parsons says. "But some of the feedback we're getting already is very positive."

Ridgway has a simpler barometer of success. "It's surpassed my expectations simply by seeing those phones light up and the letters coming in," she says.

Upcoming episodes will feature Rachel and the Extraterrestrial Highway, the Amargosa Valley, the cities of Yerington, Hawthorne and Beatty, and Indian culture. The logistics were a nightmare, Ridgway says. "The hardest part of the whole process was getting each area to send in the information that we needed to work," Ridgway says.

But, finally, they did. Somewhere in his home, Edwards has 26 envelopes stuffed with background on the 26 subjects of "The Pioneer Territory Program." Did you know that Wyatt Earp and his wife, Josie, lived in Tonopah for seven months in 1902, when Earp worked as a deputy U.S. marshal, as a teamster and was part owner of the Northern Saloon? There's story after story after story in the Pioneer Territory. "I don't care if they're true or not true," Edwards says. "And some of them have been exaggerated a little, but they're fun."

There are even more stories in the other territories -- did you know the first pair of Levis were sewn in 1870 by Reno tailor Jacob W. Davis? Edwards doesn't hide his desire to see the series lengthen its run and widen its scope after the first 26 episodes. "I'd like to do a statewide program after this one ends," he says.