Columnist Susan Snyder: Family has Bunker mentality

Friday, July 15, 2005 | 3:49 a.m.

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

WEEKEND EDITION

July 16-17, 2005

As temperatures climbed toward 115 degrees, Roger Bunker and his oldest son rested inside an air-conditioned house on their Bunkerville farm and pondered the summers of their forefathers.

When the first Bunkers worked this same land southwest of Mesquite more than 100 years ago, summer's relentless heat did not end with the day's work.

"You'd go to bed, and it would still be 100 degrees," Robert Bunker said Thursday as he talked about the state honor to be bestowed on his family's operation later this month.

They are among 11 families to receive a Nevada Centennial Farm or Ranch Award from the State Historic Preservation Office, which honors operations that have been in the same family for at least 100 years.

The awards will be given during a ceremony July 30 in Winnemucca.

In 1877 Roger's great-grandfather, Edward Bunker Sr., led half a dozen families in settling the town now named for him. The 80-acre farm likely came into the family's ownership shortly after that, Roger said, but the oldest existing paperwork dates to 1901.

Although the family's operation has grown to about 600 acres, the surrounding community didn't change all that much until recently, Roger said.

"Until about 10 years ago people in the valley were, by and large, descendants of the old-timers," he said.

Original families now are in the minority, with many farms subdivided and sold.

"In the 1980s, there were five pages in the phone book, and you knew everybody," Robert said.

"You went to the store," his father added, "and you knew everybody and how they were related. Now, you hardly recognize anybody."

They don't lament the change, though they aren't crazy about the Southern Nevada Water Authority's plans to take water from the Virgin River that has irrigated their land for more than 100 years. Communities with water have value.

Subdividing and selling land in such a fast-growing area would likely allow future Bunkers to buy larger farms in such places as Idaho or Utah, Robert said.

But those places don't carry his family's name and heritage.

"Bunkerville is special because my great-great-grandfather settled the valley," he said, echoing what he imparts to his children.

"They know we're proud to be from Bunkerville," Robert said. "We talk to them quite a bit about not wanting to do anything to soil their (family) name and about what their grandfather and great-grandfather have done."

It's hard to imagine such roots. When driving along Interstate 15 north look right near Exit 112. Just after the tall, dark silos of a ranch sold for development and just before the golf course and cookie-cutter homes is the Bunkers' emerald pasture filled with the black-and-white holsteins of the area's last dairy farm.

Two of Roger and Regena Bunker's six children still live on and work the farm. Daughter Joy and husband Brian Haviland live next-door, and Robert and his wife, Jocelyn, live in the house next to that one. The couples have eight children between them, so the elder Bunkers see half their 16 grandchildren daily.

"It's a good place to raise kids," Roger said. "Hopefully, we can raise one more generation before we get crowded out."