In Carson: Inmate missing since Friday night

Officials are searching for 36-year-old David Thiessen who walked away from the Stewart Conservation Camp between 11 p.m. Friday and 1 a.m. today.

Thiessen is believed to be in the Carson City, Reno, Sparks area and was last seen wearing blue jeans and a blue shirt.

He is a Caucasian male with brown hair and brown eyes, weighing 200 pounds and is 6 feet 5 inches tall. He has numerous tattoos including two lightning bolts and an iron cross on his left arm; and the words "Block Wall Rap" on his right arm.

He is serving a 24- to 60-month sentence for possession of a stolen vehicle out of Carson City.

Anyone with information is asked to call local law enforcement.

With the excitement of a Wild West motion picture " but without a shootout, the 29th annual re-ride of the Pony Express will enter Carson City early Wednesday morning.

The re-ride is the longest-distance annual race in the United States, surpassing the Iditarod dog sled race in Alaska (about 1,200 miles).

Scheduled to leave Fort Churchill at 2:30 a.m., riders are allotted a total of five hours to reach Carson City's Third and South Curry streets. If tradition holds true, the rider will be on time, or early.

"We always give a two-hour spread on the time of arrival," said Larry McPherson, immediate past president of the National Pony Express Association's Nevada Division. "The rider will be in Carson City probably around 7:30 a.m." McPherson will ride two sections of the trail.

At Third and South Curry streets, incoming rider Steve Notterman will hand off a mochila " a leather bag containing hundreds of commemorative letters " to rider Bob Moore, who will head south toward Genoa. The next contingency of riders are to have the mochila at Harrah's Tahoe about 1:30 p.m. About 65 riders overall carry the mochila across the 403-mile section of Nevada.

"I love this. This is my passion," McPherson said. "We got new people in (the association) this year, it's very encouraging and they're excited about it.

"This is what I like to see, excitement from the people."

McPherson asks motorists to be cautious when driving near the riders on public streets and highways.

"We do have escorts from citizen's patrols and Sierra Intermountain Emergency Radio Association, among others," he said.

SIERA has accompanied the riders across the state for many years, keeping updated information on the riders and their location on the re-ride hotline.

Rider Bob Moore has been participating since 1978, and as far as he's aware, is the only Nevada member who has participated in all re-rides.

"I do this to keep the spirit of the Pony Express and marking and use of the trail alive," he said.

Moore, 83, will be riding "Slick," a quarter horse borrowed from another rider, Carl Malkmus. After receiving the mochila, Moore will ride to Fuji Park, then take another leg of the trail at Tramway, at the top of Kingsbury Grade to Harrah's Lake Tahoe.

This is the 29th re-ride of the 1,966-mile course of the historic Pony Express Trail. It runs from St. Joseph, Mo., to Sacramento, via Kansas, Nebraska, Colorado, Wyoming, Utah and Nevada. The run alternates direction each year, this year being from east to west. The mail was delivered via Pony Express from April 3, 1860, to Oct. 24, 1861.

Nevada's unemployment rate was higher in May than the national rate for the first time in five years.

The state's seasonally adjusted rate hit 4.6 percent in May, one-tenth of a percent higher than the national rate.

Terry Johnson, director of the Department of Employment, Training and Rehabilitation, said job growth in Nevada, which was 5.2 percent a year ago, is down to just 2.2 percent for the past 12 months, lowest since October 2002.

That, however, is still better than the national average for job growth.

Nevada led the nation in job growth from 2003 to 2005 but now ranks sixth.

"We are definitely experiencing a narrowing of the gap between the state and the rest of the nation in job growth and unemployment," he said.

One of the reasons for the rising unemployment in Nevada is the housing industry slump. Over the past three years, employers added some 50,000 construction jobs to the economy. About 6,000 of those jobs have gone away since last summer, a reduction of about 3 percent.

The result is a 25 percent increase in unemployment claims by construction workers.

Johnson said there has been a 58 percent increase in claims by food preparation and service workers in the past year. He said that may be tied to the passage of ballot questions that increased the minimum wage and banned smoking in restaurants.

"It appears there could be a link between the smoking ban and the number of workers at restaurants and bars losing their jobs," he said.

And he pointed out there has been only one mega-resort to open in the past seven years, Wynn Las Vegas.

He said the good news is there are several major projects on the horizon. The Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority expects 10,000 more rooms to become available in 2008, 16,000 in 2009 and another 5,000 in 2010 " a total of 40,000 additional rooms.

"New gaming properties will add tens of thousands of workers and growth in tourism will generate new jobs in such industries as slot machine manufacturing, linen services, uniform supply and more," he said.

The state's seasonally adjusted jobless rate is one-half a percent up from May 2006 and two-tenths from April.

The rate in Carson City was even higher at 4.8 percent. But unlike the state as a whole, Carson's rate is down from April's 5.1 percent.

The Elko area, where mining is once again booming, turned in the lowest rate in Nevada at just 3.1 percent.

The Reno-Sparks reporting area reported 4.2 percent out of work. While that is a half-percent above a year ago, it is down one-tenth from April.