Columnist Susan Snyder: This style of furniture is old school

Friday, Jan. 25, 2002 | 8:56 a.m.

Susan Snyder's column appears Fridays Sundays and Tuesdays. Reach her at snyder@lasvegassun.com or (702) 259-4082.

Can you spell, "bargain?"

Used school furniture doesn't exactly qualify as haute home fashion. However, paying $15 for a four-drawer file cabinet doesn't stink. That was the going price for one when the Clark County School District put old school furniture up for sale this week.

The sale opened Tuesday for district employees who got first stab at desks, chairs and wardrobe-type cabinets. Wednesday was for the general public and on Thursday nonprofit groups could take away the leftovers for free.

"Now the biology stools -- those were awesome," said Donna Rush, a district purchasing office worker who rode herd over the sale. "The welding shop took all of those because they're metal. You can't burn a hole in that."

Jackie Efros, a Las Vegas mother of three boys, was trolling for items she might need when she begins teaching this fall. She is enrolled in a program in which stay-at-home parents with bachelor's degrees obtain teaching certificates through an intensive, accelerated program.

"I thought I'd come see what goodies I might be able to pick up for next year," she said. "I've been a stay-at-home mom for 16 years, but my kids are grown. Now it's time to go back to work."

Meanwhile Mark Edgel looked over the stacks of student chairs in a wide array of colors, taking marching orders from whomever was on the other end of his cell phone. (His wife.)

After some negotiation, he settled on 16 black chairs and eight brown ones -- one of which bore the words "I WAZ HERE" carved in the plastic seat. It was barely visible, or the chair would've been junked. Furniture that is broken, or has less-than-desirable words scratched into it, isn't sold or reused.

"What're you going to do with them?" Rush asked.

"Sit on 'em," Edgel said.

Rush got the last laugh when she refused his offer to buy six chairs for $5. After some more joking and silly bartering, Edgel handed over $24 for 24 chairs. Still a bargain, but you can't blame a guy for trying.

After all, these were purchased with taxpayer's money. Theoretically, we've paid for this stuff once already.

"These are going to my wife's garage," Edgel said as he loaded them into his pickup. "They'll be used for family get-togethers. In the past we always borrowed from neighbors."

Borrowed, because the extended Edgel clan probably could fill two houses when they sit down to a meal. He's from a family of 10. She's from a family of seven, and they have six children of their own.

"These will be used Thanksgiving, Easter, Fourth of July and Christmas," Edgel said.

Beats math class by a long shot. (Hey, when was the last time you got a "D" in Christmas?)

The wardrobe-style cabinets sold for $20 each and were gone minutes after the sale opened at 7:30 a.m., Rush said. She recalled one pair of elementary school teachers who came looking for a cabinet they could convert to a closet to hold extra clothes "because so many of their students need them."

Penny Yamagata and her 3-year-old daughter, Haley, settled on three student desks paired with three blue chairs in three different sizes for Haley, her 10-year-old brother and 8-year-old sister.

"Maybe it'll motivate them to do their homework," Yamagata said.