In Elko, planning board member touts Nevada 150

ELKO — Don Newman of Elko pulled off a hat trick at the weekend Nevada Press Association convention even though he wasn’t playing hockey.

Newman, speaking at the association’s business meeting rather than scoring hockey goals, made various points during a brief talk about Nevada 150, the state’s imminent sesquicentennial celebration. He spent a moment or two welcoming convention participants to Elko and urging them to take an alternate route home to enjoy rural Nevada’s attractions and vistas. In the process, he was running through his trio of hats.

Newman is on the Nevada 150 committee planning the sesquicentennial celebration, is the executive director of both Elko’s Convention & Visitor’s Bureau and its convention center, and serves as the rural commissioner on the Nevada Commission on Tourism. Most of his remarks centered on sesquicentennial planning, including controversy over the Nevada 150 license plates being made in Oregon.

“That’s the only place that could make them,” he said. “They do jump right out.” He was speaking of some criticism stirred by outsourcing the job, as well as the embossed nature of the plates and the effect on those seeing them for the first time.

Newman said preparing for the yearlong celebration is challenging. It provides “lots to do, lots to see and lots to get done,” he said. He touted silver commemorative medallions, which cost $100.50, and copper versions available for $15. He talked of signature and official events that tie in with the celebration.

He also mentioned his own work helping to prepare a float for this year’s Nevada Day Parade 2013 in Carson City, the kickoff of Nevada 150.

Newman said the float will be on a 48-foot trailer. It will feature state flags, with the state’s counties listed on the side and Nevada Proud on the rear, and is likely to carry children representative of the state’s melting pot past and present, he said.