LETTERS: Generous Gaughan a marketing genius

To the editor:

As I read your editorial on the passing of Jackie Gaughan, it brought back many happy memories (“People person,” Friday Review-Journal). My mom and dad would take me to the El Cortez because they loved “Mr. Porterhouse,” the biggest steak dinner in Las Vegas, for only $6.95. There was always a line for “Mr. Porterhouse,” winding around the casino, but everyone was laughing and having a good time just standing in line.

It was New Year’s Eve every Friday and Saturday night at the El Cortez, which was one of the first casinos to give away items to slot players. As with the great steak dinner, a long line would wind around the casino to get some small thing.

Mr. Gaughan was a marketing genius. He never overcharged for anything, he was always very generous and he gave you the feeling the El Cortez was your second home. Goodbye, Jackie. Thanks for the memories.

CARY DE GROSA

LAS VEGAS

Name recognition

To the editor:

I read about Erin Bilbray filing to run for Congress (“Democrat enters election to challenge Heck,” March 12 Review-Journal). It’s interesting to note that Ms. Bilbray’s daughter’s last name is Kohn, as is her husband’s.

Is she running as “Bilbray” because she feels her biggest qualification for the office she seeks is having the last name of a has-been politician, her father, James Bilbray? Does she not have enough confidence in her grasp of the issues Nevada and the nation face, and the ability to formulate solutions to the problems, that she can’t run as Erin Kohn? If not, she doesn’t deserve to be elected.

FRANK THOMPSON

HENDERSON

School crowding

To the editor:

I’m tired of hearing about how crowded our schools are. Our schools are not crowded; they are simply under-utilized. Can you think of any business that is open less than 50 percent of the time, and is closed on Saturdays? Even government offices at the federal, state and local levels are open at least 40 hours per week and often on Saturdays. Yet we provide instructional services to our students in schools for perhaps six hours a day, and only five days a week. Is that really preparing them for the future?

Yes, double sessions and year-round scheduling will relieve the immediate problem, but it will do little to alleviate the disaster that will occur when the next school building bond issue fails, and rest assured, it probably will. Our current school calendar is a relic of the 1800s and has no relevance today. Our schools sit empty 133 days each year, not counting Sundays.

There must be at least a couple of bean counters within the Clark County School District who can come up with a conceivable plan where kids go to school for eight hours a day and, heaven forbid, attend school even on Saturdays, using a plan that would comply with the state’s required seat time. With a little creativity, they could even figure out how to fill the schools on the days they remain vacant. We could conceivably triple our current enrollment without adding another facility and be graduating students by age 14.

We can no longer allow the existence of elitist elementary schools with 600 students. Nothing the school district does will please parents. Chicken Little is not yet on the doorstep, as former Clark County School District Superintendent Carlos Garcia implied. But unless something is done soon, the big, bad wolf will be.

WILLIAM TROEGER

LAS VEGAS