They’re the pride of Nevada

The Nevada Appeal’s Silver Dollars & Wooden Nickels feature recognizes achievements from the capital region and, when warranted, points out other acts that missed the mark.

SILVER DOLLAR: A couple of belated silver dollars that were 50 to 100 years in the making are awarded this week. The first is in recognition of Friday’s rededication of a plaque at the USS Nevada Memorial in honor of the battleship’s 100th anniversary of its commissioning. The USS Nevada was launched on July 11, 1914, and can certainly be called The Pride of Nevada. The USS Nevada was part of the battle of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941. Of course we owe a huge debt to all those who have served and paid the ultimate sacrifice and are serving this country, including those who served and paid the ultimate sacrifice on the USS Nevada on the Day of Infamy and throughout its history.

SILVER DOLLAR: This is also the 50th anniversary of the Race of the Century and it was a “wheatie” challenge indeed for those from Nevada to defend this state’s honor against the Easterners from Pennsylvania.

Carson City’s Fred Andreasen was among those who represented Nevada in a race against a team from Pennsylvania, which billed itself as the World Champion, in which participants ran 10 miles around the Yerington High School track carrying a 120-pound sack of wheat in 100 degree-plus heat on the Fourth of July in 1964. It was no contest. The Nevada team won going away.

The race was a re-enactment of a race in 1910 when ranch hands who were loading wheat at the Warren Ranch pooled their money in a bet to challenge one another in a race from Wabuska to Yerington carrying a sack of wheat.

So silver dollars 50 years in the making go to Andreasen, Mike Lommori, Steven Erb, Chub Quilici, Marvin McCalla and Bill Jones, who represented the Nevada team.

WOODEN NICKEL: To the U.S. Senate for not being able to pass a popular bipartisan bill that would have aided hunters. Fairly or unfairly depending on how you stand politically, Harry Reid received his share of the blame for the bill not passing. Republicans and liberal democrats also have to share the blame for once again showing their inability to come together on a popular bill that should have been a shoe-in for passage.