Reporters’ Notebook

Bob Stoldal, the local historian and TV newsman who chairs the Las Vegas Historic Preservation Commission, kept stumbling over the name of the current owners of the Moulin Rouge casino site last week.

"I'll get it right," he promised a representative of Olympic Coast Investments. "I almost said, 'Olympic Garden.' "

ALAN CHOATE

OVERHEARD ON THE SCANNER: "I think Brian's naked and swimming in his pool right now. That's why he hasn't answered you."

Tam Larnerd, the principal of Bob Miller Middle School and the president of the Clark County Association of School Administrators and Professional-Technical Employees for 2010-11, apologized for his tardiness at a School Board meeting.

"You're welcome to report me to the dean," he said. "However, I think most of the deans have been 'riffed.' "

"Riff" is slang for reduction in force, a fancy term for a layoff.

JAMES HAUG

OVERHEARD ON THE SCANNER: (A police officer, talking about a domestic disturbance.) "Be careful, she's a biter. She literally tried to bite this guy's finger off."

In 2001, Esmeralda County Commissioner Bill Kirby founded a charity event that will give you blisters just thinking about it.

It's called the Silver Peak or Bust hike, and it involves a brisk, 34-mile walk from tiny Dyer to the even tinier Silver Peak, two Nevada towns separated by a mountain range that tops 9,000 feet.

The course rises 3,000 vertical feet in the first 10 miles. The course record, set by county consultant Ed Mueller last year, is 10 hours and 15 minutes.

The event, held each year during the first full moon in October, has raised well more than $25,000 for schoolchildren in Esmeralda County.

Kirby, who used to hold the course record, said one year the race ended in a tie. He and another hiker were neck and neck as they approached the finish, so they reached a quick gentleman's agreement to cross the line at the same time.

"We decided if we both started sprinting, we might drop dead," Kirby said.

HENRY BREAN