Where I Stand — Mike O’Callaghan: An entertaining way to learn more about Nevada

Friday, Jan. 31, 2003 | 2:18 a.m.

Writer Guy Clifton of the Reno Gazette-Journal newspaper has published another book with illustrations that Nevadans should enjoy. "You Know You're a Nevadan If...," with the artwork of Marilyn Melton, is a book every person within Nevada will enjoy. It's published by the Nevada Humanities Committee and should be in your local bookstore. If your bookstore doesn't have it, call this toll-free number (800) 382-5023 to order copies.

Here are some of the bits that tell people you're a Nevadan:

Clifton's "Reno Rodeo: A History -- The First 80 Years" is the style of book the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority should consider publishing for the National Finals Rodeo which will soon have a big anniversary. Last year the author received the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association top award as National Print Journalist of the Year.

In a foreword the late columnist and author Rollan Melton wrote this about Clifton's rodeo book: "This book is so tidy and well-ordered that you'd never know it is author Guy Clifton's first book. He worked a full year on it, while not interrupting his myriad duties on the news side of the Gazette-Journal.

"The index herein is also his work and contains a staggering sum of more than 1,000 names. Over the years, and unaccountably, the lists of competitive winners at Reno Rodeo events had vanished.

"Clifton's awesome task was to painstakingly track such yearly winners in every event. His results are complete and recorded forever herein."

The New York Times newspaper carried a news brief that should get the attention of the NFL. That organization has been so dedicated to keeping non-gaming ads about Las Vegas from appearing in Super Bowl advertising it fails to see the problem caused by illegal betting.

The Times reports: "Every year for the last 12 years, prosecutors in Brooklyn have raided the parlors in the weeks leading up to the final game of the professional football season to make arrests for illegal gambling on the Super Bowl; the betting amounts to $4 billion nationwide.

"At a news conference yesterday in New York to announce arrests over the past week, Charles J. Hynes, the Brooklyn district attorney, urged professional sports organizations to support efforts to stamp out the betting businesses run by Italian and Chinese mobsters.

" 'This money that mob families make on Super Bowl Sunday will go toward funding their other illegal activities, including drug trafficking, loan sharking and prostitution,' he said.

"Super Bowl Sunday is the biggest betting day of the year, every year, officials said. ...

"Illegal gambling generates as much as $15 billion a year in New York and $100 billion nationally, according to law enforcement estimates.

"Of that amount $75 billion is bet illegally on NFL games every year."