Reporters’ Notebook

BRENDA FISCHER, GENERAL SERVICES AND COMMUNICATIONS DIRECTOR FOR NORTH LAS VEGAS, WAS NERVOUS AND EXCITED as she stood in front of the City Council on Wednesday to accept a city award for her "dedication to excellence."

"I feel like I'm in third grade and just won the science fair. My parents are here," she said.

Luckily, Fischer's brief speech, during which she thanked her family and colleagues, did not get interrupted as she jokingly feared it would. "I feel like Kanye West is going to come up here and say this award belongs to Beyoncé."

LYNNETTE CURTIS

LAS VEGAS CITY COUNCIL MEMBERS WERE WARNED TO KEEP OPPOSITION to the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste storage site fresh and sharp, since the project is still technically active even though officials have promised to scrap it.

"We keep killing it," said Bruce Breslow, executive director of the Nevada Agency for Nuclear Projects. "And it keeps coming back, like a bad zombie movie."

ALAN CHOATE

KATHERINE WILLIAMS WAS THE FIRST TEACHER AT GOODSPRINGS ELEMENTARY IN 1913, but she had many duties besides teaching 15 kids in the one classroom. During a ceremony to put a historical marker on the school last week, it was said that Williams also tended to the pot-bellied stove and most likely kept the outhouse supplied with paper ripped out of a store catalog.

JAMES HAUG

MAYOR OSCAR GOODMAN WAS AS GRACIOUS IN DEFEAT AS EVER last week when noting that Las Vegas didn't win the "Best Tennis Town" competition -- "We deserved it," he said -- but he was also ready to admit that he's no tennis player.

He once partnered with Jimmy Connors in a Caesars Palace tennis tournament, he said.

He was fresh from a trial where he defended a "reputed" mobster, and he had been unflappable in the courtroom.

The tennis court was another matter entirely.

"After (Connors) saw me with my first move, he said, 'Stand over there and don't move,'" Goodman said.

Of course, he still had to serve occasionally. His first attempt sailed out of the stands.

So, strategists from opposing campaigns, take note: If Goodman does run for governor, forget debates. Candidate smack-down tennis matches are the way to go.

ALAN CHOATE