Reno Gazette-Journal from Reno, Nevada • Page 15

COLUMNISTS 2C TV LOG 4C COMICS 5C SOAPS 6C LIFESTYLE MONDAY MARCH 4, 1991 LIFESTYLE EDITOR: CATHERINE MAYHEW, 788-6338 Western award for Gwendolyn Clancy VJ" Nothing to sneeze at. Allergies are everywhere coast to coast. If you have allergies that travel with you, get an allergy calendar that illustrates the month-by-month peak and minimal periods across the nation. For a copy of the Allerest Allergy Calendar, call On the job. Being a bartender in Reno is just like the TV show "Cheers," right? Well, not exactly.

But it's a living. Page 3. Getting a job. If you're sick of your job, don't quit yet! The experts say you need to have a plan before you tell the boss off. Page yy ffi wen" II dolyn cy, II crea-Ktl tive staffer at the University of Nevada, Reno, has captured the ultimate honor of her meritorious career.

JlISfllM time. What we needed was ROLLAN MELTON some white stuff, and it finally arrived. Now Snowfest at Lake Tahoe makes more sense. On tap today: a backgammon tourney at Jake's on the Lake, a napkin hat contest (hey, this is sophisticated festival, you know?) at Hacienda del Lago and a dance contest at Emma Murphy's. Details on all events: 916-583-7625.

No more Parents magazine reports that researchers at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center found a way to make shots less painful for little ones. Take along a paper party blower. As the doctor gives the shot, have your child blow slowly on the toy to divert his attention from the pain. Just call me Jimmy, in "Citizen Carter," the Discovery Channel offers a private glimpse of a public man whose popularity has increased since he left office. 6 to 7 p.m.

i Vi Mr Craig SailOfGazette-Joumal Verdi Inn: Since 1925. Or maybe March, 1987. I The writer and producer of the film, "The Man They Call Will James," won a special award for historical excellence from the Cowboy Hall of Fame. Former winners include James Stewart, John Wayne, John Ford, Sidney Pollack and the late author Louis L'Amour. Clancy will be honored March 16 at the Hall of Fame in Oklahoma City.

The western heritage award, begun in 1 960, goes to a select few who judges feel best tell the great stories of the west, "with accuracy and the highest artistic quality." Will James, famous cowboy artist and writer, wrote "Smokey, the Cowhorse," while living in Washoe Valley. Nevada campus president Joe Crowley told Clancy: "Your award is great news. You are a most deserving recipient and your accomplishment brings recognition to our Historic Preservation program at the university. Clancy's film on James was previewed in Reno in 1990, to rave reviews. GRAND LADY: It was standing room only in Lovelock at St.

John's Catholic Church as family and friends said goodbye to revered 95-year-old Ruth Sullivan. The matriarch of a distinguished Nevada family was eulogized by a parade of speakers. Caroline J. Hadley, of Washoe Valley, saluted her dear friend Ruth Sullivan, saying in part: "Always willing to learn some more, in her 90s she took classes at UNR. Geology, Spanish, computers too, there wasn't a thing that Ruth wouldn't do.

'Got to keep up with my she said. 'They're talking Moog synthesizers, computerized spreads. I need that pretty Spanish for my Mexican dreams, 'cause there's always a place that I haven't SIGNS OF THE TIMES: When Reno's Liz Smyth briskly walks her laps around Virginia Lake, passersby do a doubletake at her royal blue shirt, emblazoned with bold white letters. Inscribed thereon, presumably in reverse order of cultural importance: London. Paris.

Rome. Minden. HATS OFF to one of northern Nevada's best prep athletes, Fallon's 152-pound senior wrestler, Mickey Ritter, who won the state title, defeating southern Nevada's top wrestler, Eric Spooner. Spooner, of Las Vegas, was going for his third straight state championship. In the match at Las Vegas, Ritter won, 6-3.

His elated coach Bill Bursill. said "Anyone who defeats Eric Spooner deserves a shot at college wrestling!" To date, the Fallon athlete has scholarship offers from Boise State and California State University at Bakersfield. QUOTABLE NEVADAN: Nevada Assemblyman Jim Gibbons, flying reconnaissance missions in the Persian Gulf, writing to Reno friend Bettina B. Swanson: "The people back home in Nevada suffered a lot of pain in a crisis like this, probably as much as many of the military involved in the war over here." WEDDING BELLS: Former Nevada governor Robert List was married Feb. 23 at Alexandra, to Polly Minor, who has been associated with Rep.

Barbara Vucanovich, lately as the Nevada congresswoman's 1990 campaign coordinator. After honeymooning in Mexico, the Lists will make theirhomeinReno. VOLUNTEER Bess Felstine won the Sertoma Sierra District blue-ribbon award, and for good reason. The tireless Nevadan logged more than 22,000 hours of volunteer work at Louganis Veterans Hospital in Reno. Rollan Melton is a Gazette-Journal columnist His column appears Sundays, Mondays, and Thursdays.

By Lenita PowersGazette-Journal Sure, you can pick out Harrah's on the Reno skyline and you know Rattlesnake Mountain is the bane of pilots using the airport's southern departure. But what about those unusual oddities? What's the story behind the crumbling stone remains of a building in Washoe Valley? Why did the huge metal spider that crouched next to South Virginia Street for more than a decade recently disappear? And egad! what's that smell around Steamboat Springs that makes people in out-of-state cars look accusingly at one another? Glad you asked. Now sit back for a tour of some unofficial Truckee Meadows' landmarks. Dall's Mill Mechanical Shop: The stone wall remnant to the east of Highway 395 just as you start across Washoe Valley on your way to Carson City was once the mechanical shop for an ore-processing mill in now-defunct Ophir City. Named after the famed Ophir Mine in Virginia City, the city sprang up near Washoe Lake in 1 86 1 to process gold and silver from the Comstock.

Unofficial landmarks: They don't charge admission, but these sights around the Truckee Meadows get just as much attention as our more famous attractions. year by brothers Vincent and Michael De Domenico, who have been remodeling the building in a style Michael calls Gothic western. "There's no architectural style called Gothic western, but there's a kind of pulp novel, right? I see the exterior as Gothic, but it's a western motif." What do they plan to do with it? "Finish it," Michael De Domenico said. Bv? "By? By March of 1987. Yeah, I'm pretty sure that was it.

Now what we've been doing for the last four years, well, you'll just have to wait and see. But mostly we're holding back because of the economy." Then why has the Verdi Inn been listed for years in Nevada Bell's yellow pages as a restaurant ready to serve lunches and dinners? "As I said." De Domenico replied, "we were going to open March of 1 987 and we've always been confident it (the reopening) was just around the corner." When it opens, again as the Verdi Inn, it will be a bar and restaurant with banquet facilities, he said. Steamboat Hot Springs: These natural hot springs are located 10 miles south of Reno off Highway 395 just past the Mount Rose Highway turnoff. You can sometimes see the steam rising from the fissures on the western terrace near the highway. You also can smell the malodorous aroma from the sulphide minerals.

Home in the 1 860s to a small town and later mining community, it at one time as a popular spa and is now home to geothermal plants and the residents of Steamboat Springs. ago. The proposed S45-million River Inn Hot Springs was to be built in three phases and completed by 1999. Reno attorney Steve Walther said the lethargic economy has put those plans on hold, but work could begin by 1992. "As I understand it, that building was a mechanical shop for the mill; kind of like a blacksmith's shop," said Phillip Earl, curator of exhibits at the Nevada Historical Society.

At its peak, Ophir City had 1,200 residents before it, like the The Verdi Inn: Built in 1925 to house orkers for the Verdi Lumber the Verdi Inn later became a bar and restaurant until 1985, when a fire burned the historic inn. It was purchased the following A si trf xrr? old stone mechanical shop, crumbled into history. The Volkswagen Beetle: This 18-feet-tall, 30-feet-widc metal sculpture is a familiar sight to long-time residents. It looks more like a horror-movie spider, but David Fambrough, who created it in 1 978. calls it the Volkswagen Beetle.

Aptly enough, too, since its body is a VW Beetle and its legs are made of irrigation pipes. Fambrough, 4 1 recently removed it from its old haunt along the 1 2000 block of South Virginia Street. He's sprucing up the Beetle for friend Phil Boggs. Boggs is negotiating with his landlady to allow him to put it on top of his store, Ozboggs Tires, near the Ponderosa Hotel on South Virginia Street. "If it doesn't work out.

I'm going to have to look for some other place to put it." Fambrough said. "It's not fine art, it's fun art." The River Inn: Here we have a popular natural hot springs spa that dates back before the turn of the century. Located 4 miles west of Reno on Old Highway 40, it was owned by Sumner Lee Laughtonfrom 1884 until 1920. It changed hands a number of times between 1920 and 1 978. hen what was by then known as the River Inn hotel-casino was purchased by the soon-to-be infamous George Benny.

The Hungarian immigrant-turned real estate magnate from Hillsborough. was going to rebuild the River Inn and reopen the $10-million project as Benny's River Palace. Unfortunately for Bennv, he was sentenced in 1984 to 30 years in federal prison for mail fraud and racketeering and millions of dollars in contractors' liens were filed against the property. T. M.

Chang of San Mateo bought the property 1 2 years I File photo Craig Sailor Gazette-Journal River Inn: From 1884. Steamboat Hot Springs..