Letters to editor of the Pahrump Valley Times

Robotics program helps inspire students

On Saturday, Feb. 9, three teams of teens from Pahrump competed in the annual Nevada FIRST Robotics Competition. Two of those teams made it to the final round!

This is significant because this is only the second year that a team from Pahrump has competed. Our success this year is because of the vision of the folks at Southern Nye County Pahrump 4H. They created the program that sent the first team to Reno last year.

This year that vision has expanded to include a second all-girl team at the 4H and a co-ed team at Pahrump Valley High School. And, that’s not all. There are now 10 FIRST Lego League teams (up from one team in 2018) at the grade school and middle school level.

FIRST has been around for 30 years. To learn more about this organization, you can visit their website at https://www.firstinspires.org/about/vision-and-mission. FIRST has successfully combined the excitement of a sports competition with the discipline of math and science. In a nutshell, it makes being a geeky nerd exciting and cool.

Exposure of our children to STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) subjects is pretty important today. The teams that compete in FIRST get hands-on experience in why these STEM skills are important and are able to directly apply these skills to build a winning robot. They learn skills for the future. They learn teamwork. They compete for scholarships. They have fun. Just like other athletes.

We’re going to continue supporting the Pahrump FIRST Coalition.

We would encourage others to get involved as well.

Bill Carpenter

Randale C. Sechrest, MD

Reader rebuts ‘blue Nevada’ PV Times letter

Mr. Crooks, I don’t understand just where you get your data. Nevada is NOT a “very” blue state, it is for the most part red. What we have is a blue Las Vegas and Reno and the reason for that is many of the new residents have come from California, moved to Vegas and Reno and brought with them their Democratic ideas. They ran from the state they created when they found they could no longer afford to live there. The “good” people of Nevada certainly don’t want higher property taxes, the start of state income tax, higher sales taxes or higher DMV fees. If you think I am mistaken, then just look at our bankrupt neighbor, who want to give everything to everyone except to those who earned and paid for it.

Another not well-thought-out statement you made is that the Republican party no longer exists, it’s now the Trump party. If that is the case then the Democratic party is now the Pelosi party. If I have a choice between the two, it will be Trump hands down. Let’s see, in two years we have better trade agreements with most of the rest of the world, North Korea is not trying to invade every other day, he lowered the tax rates so everyone is taking more home in their paycheck, employment is up, unemployment down, stock market increasing, and he is trying to defend this country, vs. the Democrats, who are wanting to abort babies up to the moment of birth, want to give away citizenship to people who entered the county illegally, want open borders with no walls (while they live behind walled fortresses), they make every attempt to abolish the Second Amendment (while they are escorted with armed bodyguards), and the list goes on and on… So tell me Mr. Crooks, what brought you to Nevada? I was born here.

Dave Stringham