WEEK IN REVIEW: Reporters’ notebook

Secret Service agents on the tarmac at McCarran International Airport handed out some coveted swag from Air Force One on Wednesday: exclusive presidential M&Ms.

The blue and white boxes have the presidential seal with a reproduction of Barack Obama’s signature on the front. An M&M character holding an American flag marches on the back of the package.

The tradition of presidential M&Ms dates back to George H.W. Bush, who is reported to have chosen the treat to replace Ronald Reagan’s signature Jelly Bellies.

KRISTI JOURDAN

Rancher Hank Vogler has spent nearly half his life in White Pine County’s Spring Valley, where he has worked and often struggled to carve out a living in a narrow, unforgiving business.

He credits his work ethic and his positive attitude for getting him through, but he freely admits he could have chosen a much easier path.

“Knowing what I know now,” he said Thursday, “I think I would have been better off if I’d learned to play the banjo.”

HENRY BREAN

Las Vegas Mayor Carolyn Goodman’s delivery of a week’s worth of meals to a Meals On Wheels client Monday was far from her first experience with food service.

She has been serving food her whole life, she said. Each evening her husband, former Mayor Oscar Goodman, “plops down on his favorite part of the couch” and “within five minutes is saying, ‘I’m hungry. What’s for dinner?’ ”

LYNNETTE CURTIS

Valley native Howard Johnson plowed his nest egg into what he thought was one of the safest investments around: Las Vegas real estate.

Now he’s stuck watering the weeds on five acres of undeveloped dirt just to keep from losing the water connection to his seriously devalued property.

But on the bright side, waiting for the market to rebound has left him with lots of time to daydream about all the ways his original investment could have made him a millionaire by now.

As Johnson put it: “God I wish I’d gone and bought Apple stock.”

HENRY BREAN