Kootsoo, a 19-Year-Old Local with Her Own Tattoo Shop and Art Business

Nyelli Chacon, better known as Kootsoo on social media and in art circles, is a 19-year-old who says she didn’t really have a plan after high school and compared to some of her classmates that had plans like going to college, joining the army, or going into the workforce she felt disorganized. Kootsoo just had her dreams of doing art and followed them. 

Just a few years later, Kootsoo has had artistic success and was recently able to open her own tattoo studio on Wells Avenue. Nyelli is half Northern Pauite from Pyramid Lake on her mother’s side and half Chicana on her dad’s side. Kootsoo is a Northern Pauite word and it means cow which is Nyelli’s favorite animal. 

She was born and raised in Reno and lives in the Reno-Sparks Indian colony. Kootsoo graduated from Wooster High in 2022. She didn’t take art seriously until her senior year of high school when she first started using Procreate.

Kootsoo has been on the art scene professionally for two years and started by doing acrylic paintings for galleries and vending at local events. She would post her art online and a few of her pieces went viral. Kootsoo got invited to the Bay Area or local Reno places like Radical Cat and Holland because of this. 

“I’ve just been working from home since then doing commissions for local brands, I draw logos,” says Kootsoo. 

Kootsoo’s newly acquired tattoo studio is located on S Wells Ave. 

The transition to getting her own studio also went quickly. She had previously been apprenticing in the same building located at 1545 S Wells Ave across from the Marketon supermarket, but she decided to go professional and get her license as well as other documents and certifications she needed for her business. “I have so many friends that are barely coming of age to get tattoos, so I tattoo a lot of young people,” says Kootsoo. So far this year Kootsoo says she’s already tattooed over 30 people.  

Kootsoo’s parents worried about her at first. “They were afraid of me being financially stable going into this and just with my age, a lot of people in the art industry are older and have more experience. They were just worried about me but as of now I’ve proven to them what I can do and they’re really proud,” says Kootsoo. 

One of Kootsoo’s tattoo works. Follow her on Instagram @Koottsoo to see more of her art or to book for an appointment. 

Kootsoo finds her inspiration in her culture, car shows, growing up on the reservation, and anime or manga.

Currently, Kootsoo is focusing on making her space more homey and decorating it to make her clients more comfortable. In the future, Kootsoo says she hopes to be able to take on a bigger space.

She plans on staying in Reno though. “It’s my city, and it’s been so good to me. I love it. I want to bring a new vision to tattooing,” she says.

Our Town Reno reporting by Nancy Vazquez

Biggest Little Baby Ramps Up Support, Including Diaper Drives

Located On South Virginia Street there’s a unique store with classes called Biggest Little Baby which also calls itself “one of Reno's most loved sources of community support circles.”

The care center offers various resources for people in the community who are looking to be parents or are expecting. It can even help family members of those expecting. For one of the owners, Sarah Walton, it is important to serve the underprivileged community members in this stage of their lives as well.

“I want people to have an open mind that this time in our lives isn’t something that should be in a compartment of its own it needs to be something that is integrated into our lives and our communities and into how we show up for one another and that is everyone's responsibility not just people who are childbearing,” Walton said during a recent interview.

A section in the store filled with books is available for checkout to community members. 

Biggest Little Baby is a store that sells any sort of imaginable baby product from diapers to maternity clothes. They also have a few items that can be checked out such as books from a section that covers subjects from fertility to difficult toddlers.

Even if someone happens to not find what they're looking for Biggest Little Baby is equipped with tons of resources around the city. They are constantly growing and adding things to their organization such as in the future they hope to be a safe place drop off.

“I have never been in a space that had so much feminine drive and feminine energy,” Walton said. “It's not what I have been drawn to in the past and so it's been a cool place to see shift.”

The store open seven days a week also hosts fitness and support classes.

A whiteboard hung up in the store space of Biggest Little Baby detailing the various support circles and other activities happening there during the month. 

Biggest Little Baby is also always hosting a variety of events such as story time for children or a variety of circles for Moms. Some of the examples of circles they have are circles that provide support for young parents or parents who have lost a child. “A lot of people know that they're welcome whether there's a baby in their belly or not,” says Walton. These circles are led by people who have gone through these experiences.

They also sometimes have donation drives. One of their most recent ones, in collaboration with Black Wall Street Reno, was a community diaper drive.

Sarah Walton poses with diaper donations for the drive in collaboration with Black Wall Street Reno. 

Inside Biggest Little Baby is also Bright Heart Birth Services. They more specifically help with birth and postpartum. They have a few doulas and their services also extend to things such as placenta encapsulation or other keepsakes.

For all the staff alike it's always a pleasure to see people of all sorts come in, young, old, or queer, as well as sometimes get to watch the children of community members who frequent Biggest Little Baby, grow up.

“I really encourage people to come down here and get a little tour whether they are in a child bearing stage or not because there's a good chance that they know somebody who is,” Walton concluded at the end of our own tour.

Our Town Reno reporting by Nancy Vazquez

What do You Think of the Future of Casinos in Downtown Reno?

As local attention keeps being fixated on the rebranded Sands J Resort on Arlington Ave., we often wonder about our downtown Virginia street section, and what its still operational casinos and recently faltered ones mean to the present and future of Reno?

When there’s talk of revitalizing our downtown, or working on new bike lanes, the casinos are often the elephants in the room, sometimes overlooked, but when it comes down to it central to any decision and still all imposing. 

After several requests for comments via our multiple social media channels, the responses we received on our query about casinos and our downtown future were illuminating, with anecdotes which could fill a book. 

There were many proponents of casinos, who pointed to helpful tax dollars and to their key role in the city’s history, culture and identity, and the many jobs provided, but also many frustrated contributors who complained of the look and feel of our downtown on most days — the passed out and the end of their rope gamblers laid out in front of corner stores with kitschy offerings, pawn shops with the most random of items, and boarded up shops painted over with murals in yet another display of local “art washing.” 

“Tbh Reno should've followed Vegas in the 90s and demolished all these casinos and built better new and bigger tourists attractions. That's where they really dropped the ball. Downtown is just a sad depressing place to be now. Seems like 2011ish was the last great year Reno had,” Z.eros wrote.  Some would argue with the last glory year, but most commenters agreed that section of Reno is past its prime. “Might as well get rid of the few remaining, at this point, it's a dump downtown,” Tally Walz wrote on our Facebook. 

It’s a particular type of tourist, eater, concert goer, gala attendee and local gambler who still enters casino doors, while many other residents enjoy Virginia street only when there’s an outdoor event, with cars blocked out, and not having to enter the fluorescent caverns to be entertained.

With the population surge, and the success of each of these events, it seems there could be one for almost every weekend on the calendar. 

On our Instagram Roman de Salvo disagreed with the aforementioned Z.eros that bigger would have been better in changing our downtown. He lamented the lack of a pedestrian feel on non event days. 

“Time was, downtown was remarkably vital and vibrant, with lots of shopping in addition to the many small casinos that competed at street level for the abundant pedestrian traffic,” he wrote. “The hermetically sealed parking-hotel-restaurant-casino biospheres are an invasive species that has out-competed the smaller native species of a historically street oriented urban ecology. The mega-resorts have given us a blight that ultimately isn't good even for themselves. (Take Harrah's, for instance.)”

In some of the most pointed comments we received he explained why Virginia Street can be so desultory, by design. “They're a pernicious business that breeds payday lenders, pawnshops, addiction and blight,” he wrote of our downtown casinos.

“In the five years I have lived in Reno, I have only been inside a casino once, for a concert. While I appreciate Circus Circus letting UNR peeps park for free, it’s a really unpleasant place to be a pedestrian. Casinos seem like a relic from the past and slot machines make me sad,” wrote Andy Zuker, a student at UNR, hinting to a generational divide, even though many students themselves struggle with gambling addiction, or gamble as one of their choices of entertainment.

Some commenters contributed memories of how they used to try their luck at the local casinos but then stopped or at least eased up. “I gambled a paycheck when I was in my 20s,” Valerie Tilson wrote. “Since then I then had a friend who would give me 20 hold my purse/wallet and put a small clock in front. When after an hour the alarm went off and had to leave whether I was up or down if I was up it was then split upon exit. 3 years later I never gambled again nor gone inside of casino.”

Many expressed relief they weren’t themselves gambling addicts, but had difficult stories about friends and family to share. “Born and raised here...seen MANY people drop "Juniors" college fund or try and double the mortgage payment before heading out empty handed,” Jared Tyner wrote, with ALL CAPS to emphasize certain parts of his statement.  “I gamble MAYBE once a year to just mess around and drink for free.” “Have too many family members who sound cuckoo for thinking they have some sort of ritual for hitting the button "just right" to win etc…” Tab Isamzin wrote. 

“I grew up here,” Jessica Castro wrote.  “My father had a gambling addiction. I struggled with gambling for a long time in my early 20s. Casinos do not do enough for our community such as donating to local non profits or mutual aid groups.”

“Casino’s main purpose for existing is to rid people of their money, while offering a bit of entertainment between the entry and exit,” Lo Hoyman wrote in a matter of fact way.

Laura Furumoto wrote about her first husband who she said was a gambling addict. His life story she shared reads like a local Greek tragedy, with harsh words for the casino industry.

“His dad used to take him to Circus Circus to win animals at games when he was little,” she wrote. “Bet on sports next. Then worked at sports books as a side job. Then worked legit and had his own company for decades making six figures and took his high profile customers to casinos for dinners, shows, gambling. Hosted international convention parties by renting out tops of casinos… Then started gambling more heavily. He fell in love with the poker dealer at the Peppermill. Divorce. Bought a house in Somersett for her. Lost her after being engaged six months and she asked for a TRO. Gambled company away. Became a "Professional Gambler" going to play in World Series of Poker etc. Largest win recorded online for him was about $36k. Playing online poker more heavily. Lost his house. COVID killed travel to Vegas. Got a job at a big box warehouse store for minimum wage. Evicted from nice apartment in NW Reno. Now lives in low income/assisted pay apartments in a bad part of town. Not safe for our daughter with special needs. Gambling is evil. It ruins lives. Every single time. The house always wins - the price the gambler pays is their sanity, their money, their future, their souls… Casinos can absolutely go away. Only value [they] have is the entertainment but the Pioneer Center and other non-profits can provide that proficiently,” she concluded. 

“They are well designed by very intelligent people to extract as much money from vulnerable people as possible,” Xu Yun Xuan Tong wrote on Facebook, who had a more data based approach to our query.  “Only about 3-5% end up ahead over a year, and less and less the longer they go. 10% of gamblers throw away so much of their money that they account for 90% of a casino's profits. But telling addicts these things never sways them more than the psychological manipulation the casinos enact. At least it pays a lot of Nevada's taxes.”

We got testimonies from others who like to gamble but keep their gambling under control.

“I think it’s all about self control but people always think they can win and then lose,” Bailey Kay wrote. “I like going to the casino, not any downtown except maybe Cal Neva, and that’s to have a drink with friends and try a few slots.”

Others like “janeyahm” on Instagram saw change away from casinos as a negative. 
“Reno needs to embrace its history. The casinos were amazing, the western/ cowboy culture, souvenir stores that are actually cool, Reno tries so hard to be cool and in that attempt all the cool things about Reno seem to be getting lost.”

Echoing this sentiment, Debi Kessler wrote: “I wish we still had all of our old casinos in downtown.  At least it had character then!” Daniel Carroll added: “We should have the old school type casinos back. Or just more in general. Our downtown scene is sad and needs more action.”

“Casinos have supported and sustained this state. If you don’t like it, you can go somewhere where there are no casinos,” Joe Hoax wrote on our Facebook.  “Leave the casinos, strip bars, and tattoo shops alone. Don’t change this unique city. I gamble maybe $100 a year at the most as entertainment.”

“If government can operate a lottery, people should have the right to run a casino,” wrote Louis Santiago Dong III. “If you don't like something you don't ban it, you just don't partake. Don't like gay marriage, don't partake but don't ban it. If you're smart you'd put that $20 in video poker at the bar and with $10 beers at the ROW you break even after two beers.”

“If you get rid of gambling and casinos then you erase Reno all together,” Jennifer Burroughs wrote. “It’s the individual’s decision. Government is not here to tell adults what to do with their money.”

The definition of cool and what we need for the community seems to be in dispute though in terms of who you ask.

“Midtown and the river front are thriving,” a commenter who goes by Glynffinite wrote. “Reno would be so much cooler if most or all of the downtown casino zone was turned into mixed use.  The nicest casinos are all away from downtown anyway these days.”

“While I actually am nostalgic for the blingy vibrancy of the downtown clubs as they were in their heyday, before tribal casinos in other states, I don't see much of a future [for] most of them,” de Salvo concluded in his own comments. “You can pretty much smell which of them are going to fail next.”

“It seems like absolutely anyone near or younger than my age has zero interest in going to a casino where literally the only thing you can do is sit and lose money on slots or cards while getting second hand smoke forced down your throat,” a UNR student wrote.

Like the Jacobs expansion, or the destruction of motels, where to put bike lanes or the median in Midtown, the future value of our Virginia street casinos seems to represent one of those dividing lines in local social media discussions.  As long as there are casino goers though, it’s probably a safe bet some of these will remain for the time being and continue to dominate the center strip of our fast growing Biggest Little City.  

Photos in this article by Ariel Smith for Our Town Reno

Immigrants of Reno: Alex Perez, Going Back to Drawing Celebrities

Alex Perez first came here as immigrant from Nicaragua after the country was undergoing a civil war.

“It was extremely hard for me to fit into the American culture at the beginning I barely knew how to speak English,” he remembers.

But his passion for art was always there as even without supplies at first he painted on old pieces of wood and anything he could find.

Perez graduated from high school in Texas only a year after moving to the U.S. He knew he had to move to pursue a career in becoming an artist, his dream.

So he packed up his belongings and moved to Los Angeles.

“Most people are scared to move to somewhere like Los Angeles but I had nothing to lose so I applied and sent in my art work everywhere,” he said.

He eventually landed a job as a political cartoonist at the newspaper called “La Opinion” a Hispanic newspaper.

Photos from the past tell his story as a cartoonist.

Perez left “La Opinion” after two years but with an established portfolio he started to apply to bigger newspapers. And to his surprise his career took a new turn.

Instead of being a political cartoonist he was now drawing entertainment celebrities. His work was published in newspapers like the Los Angeles Times, the Hollywood Reporter and the Washington Post.

He was living the dream. Perez went from bagging groceries at a local grocery store to supplement his income to attending movie premieres, and starting to become recognized for his art by famous actors including Tom Cruise and Morgan Freeman.

“I was finally getting recognized for what I loved to do it was a surreal moment in my life,” he remembers of the mid 1980s and 1990s.

Over the years, Perez became syndicated and recognized by the Academy of Motion Pictures. Unfortunately, newspapers were slowly starting to fade in the 2000s and his career started to slow down.

Perez had worked on a few projects here and there but ultimately he decided to move to Reno, Nevada to start his family and work for a gaming company called IGT.

“Although I was still drawing, I was crushed inside because it wasn’t what I truly wanted to do and I finally had a taste of what my dreams were like because they had came true,” he said.

Back at it. “Almost 20 years passed I knew I couldn’t let my dreams die down so I picked up the pieces and started to create something new,” Perez said of starting drawing again during retirement.

Perez is now retired which has allowed him to start drawing again and resume work as an artist. He soon hopes to host an exhibition with all of his art in Los Angeles.

“To never give up on your dreams but most importantly to never give up on yourself in all my years of my career I had doubts but I picked myself back up and knew that I could make it,” he said.

Reporting by Daniela M Perez shared with Our Town Reno

Researching the Paranormal at the Jesse Hotel and Bar

Seeing a woman use dowsing rods to look for spirits in a basement and then watching a man punching out demons in the air with a knife was a first for me as a reporter.

It was raining and hailing on a Sunday afternoon in downtown Reno. I had arrived a few minutes before the entire ghost hunting team I had an appointment with. The group known as Researching the Paranormal has been contacting Our Town Reno for a while now, for us to document what they do.

When everyone was at the Jesse Hotel and Bar, I was introduced to Andre Lewis the “CEO” of the operation. He along with Leroy Abolinas, the “demon hunter” of the group, I was told, were the two who initially started these ghost hunting activities, taking them to spooky places across the region. 

They later added other members including Chevonne Sumler, the medium, and also Andre’s fiance, Teri McCormick, the “overseer of research” and also the only member who is able to use dowsing rods to communicate with spirits.

There’s also Dave, who films and does voice-overs. Angela Nannegathe is the empath of the group who seems to help Chevonne the most in the group when she is overcome by visions from the spirit world.

“The visions make me cry, there’s so many mixed emotions at once. I don’t know how to control that yet,” Chevonne said.

Left to Right: Members of the ghost hunting team: Dave, Terri McCormick, Andre Lewis, Chevonne Sumler, Leroy Abolinas, and Angela Nannegathe. Taken in the lobby of the Jesse Hotel and Bar. 

All of the members say they are sensitive to paranormal activity in one way or another. Andre and Leroy always saw spirits as young boys. “Since they’re messing with me anyway, it’s time for me to come at them,” Andre says. 

Leroy on the other hand specifically told of a time as a child when he would be frequently visited by a Native American Spirit that spoke to him. Terry on the other hand has never seen a spirit but has started to believe in them since joining the team. 

Dave also cannot see spirits but has feelings about certain places and says he’s now friendly with a spirit the group picked up on one of their investigations named Lily. He says she currently lives in his pickup truck and enjoys metal music. “I don't think I have a well developed gift like Chevonne or anything … it's more like a gab,” Dave explains. 

Andre above filming the visit for the group’s channels.
Angela also is unable to see spirits except for in her dreams but can most certainly feel them. She says this ability came about after she was pronounced medically dead a few times in the past. During these times when she was momentarily gone, she described out-of-body experiences. 

What prompted an investigation of the Jesse Hotel were previous experiences the team had encountered there. One of the members recalls going to use the restroom and then seeing something in one of the mirrors.

Another member says that a hanger was thrown at them out of nowhere while they were in the hotel.

Meanwhile, Leroy had a much more personal experience with a physical housekeeper of the hotel.  He described the housemaid as strange and with a fly flying around her.  He said the entire conversation was uncomfortable and that she kept asking questions such as, “if demons have a chance to change their ways,” Leroy says. 

Chevonne breaks down after having a vision of the spirits trapped in the basement. 

During this investigation, the team decided look into the basement of the hotel, which according to the managers is the most active place for spirit activity.

The basement of the hotel used to have tunnels that are now sealed. These tunnels were believed to have been used to transfer money safely from one location to another beneath Reno and were also popular for prostitution activities.

Typically however the team finds places to investigate by researching the history and legends of Nevada or from word of mouth. “There’s just places you drive by and you feel something,” Dave says. 

After everyone had geared up, it was time to head downstairs. During the initial interview, the members had something that I was now recalling on the wooden steps … that was to be careful going down or up the stairs so you don’t get pushed by anything that could be lurking. 

Once downstairs the team started to get a feel for the place. At some point during this process, Andre wandered off by himself into the deeper basement area. No one had noticed until we all heard a metal clang and Andre exclaiming, “Oh shit!” To which Dave announced, “Ok viewers it is starting already, we are not two minutes in, we haven't gotten set up yet and we have things being thrown.” 

Andre claims to have had something thrown at him that their viewers can see in their YouTube video linked above.

The next step was the dowsing rods. Terri wielded the rods and even let me hold one. She explained to me how the precision bearing on the instrument made it so no one could manipulate them. The way that they worked was a question would be asked and typically they would cross for yes or stay open for no.

One of the many questions that Terri asked the spirits was where the demons were located in the basement room. This was caught in their video as well, but once she had asked that question I couldn't help but feel that the dowsing rods slowly pointed in my direction since I was standing behind Terri. Of course, I got a bit nervous. 

Somewhere in between the questions Chevonne suddenly started having a vision. She began to cry and break down.  While she was in this trance-like state she was telling us she could see a young female prostitute, somewhere, likely in her twenties. “She was beat,” Chevonne said.  She also described that the spirit was running through the tunnels and that her name was Natalie. 

Terri asked the rods if there was a Natalie present in the basement to which she got a yes answer. The next step for the team was to exercise the spirit which is where Leroy comes in. 

Leroy had previously shown me a knife that he carries around his waist, that he says has been blessed by the universe. At this point, Leroy was wielding the knife and was drawing his ritual pentagon in the air in front of where the demon supposedly was. He would then proceed to stab this entity and move their energy to be no more. 

“You’re very lucky,” Teri said to me. “Sometimes we’re here for hours and nothing happens.” In just a few minutes, I had gotten to see a bit of everything that typically happens in their investigations. 

Afterward, the team proceeded to a room on the top floor of the hotel to have a discussion. This time served as a reflection of what they had just experienced as well as to recall other similar encounters, and to plan for their next investigation, as well their outreach efforts to have their work noticed.

Our Town Reno reporting by Nancy Vazquez

Enos Interiano, for the Love of Teaching Spanish

In raw and honest terms, Spanish teacher at Reno High Enos Interiano defines the experience in his own words:  

“So, the experience of teaching... Well, it goes something like this. If you like baseball, it’s like hitting a home run, going through all the bases, but once you get to third base you feel like you’re craw-w-wling from third base to home base.  That’s teaching.  When you get to your final quarter, you just feel like ‘Oh my god, is this thing ever going to end?’  That’s my experience with teaching.”  

Born in El Salvador, San Salvador, Interiano’s passion for teaching came from the act of giving.  It was early at age fourteen that he discovered this talent when becoming a karate instructor. 
Since then, he has been devoted to the path of teaching with now four years of experience in the profession.  His favorite part about teaching is, “seeing your students at graduation after putting in so much work for them to graduate."

To him, it is students that make his life of teaching worthwhile. From students writing a thoughtful letter to him to students buying him lunch, Interiano is grateful to have students who show him the power students carry beyond the classroom. 

Story and photo by Eneida Castaneda Sanchez

Rediscovering Spiritual Roots: Locals Find Healing in Indigenous Practices and Shamanism

From Indigenous Mexican witch healer, Mary Rojas (above) to Peruvian Shaman, Fabiola Baughman, Reno’s world of the occult is dazzling, intriguing, and led by courageous Latine leaders. Through practices rooted in ancient Indigenous traditions, these Latine healers are able to push back against post-colonial Catholic doctrines which have often quelled the voices of alternative spiritual practitioners.

Practitioners diverting from their Latin American Catholic heritage in Reno include Mary Rojas, a self-described witch who has been actively reconnecting with their Indigenous heritage through their spirituality and art.

Rojas grew up Catholic, but six years ago they started recognizing that some family practices didn’t align with Catholicism. They were derived from their Purépecha and Nahua ancestry.

The Purépecha and Nahua are Indigenous peoples in Mexico, and the Nahua is most famous for founding the Aztec empire. Rojas honors their Nahua heritage by incorporating the Aztec calendar into their daily life and using the Aztec codex as a reference for their art.

Stickers that Rojas sells featuring their logo “Saint Fax” and a “Land Back” sticker. Land back is a movement associated with decolonization and has a long history of organizing and sacrificing to get Indigenous lands back into Indigenous hands.

Rojas said that they use the Aztec calendar to judge the “vibes” of the day. Depending on what type of day it is on the calendar, Rojas will adjust how they approach it.

While Rojas was lucky enough to know what tribes they descended from, they acknowledge that it isn’t that way for everyone.

“Even if you don't know what people you come from, you can still appreciate that we are still here, we're still connected, like, you know, this is something you can look at to, you know, be proud of,” Rojas said.

As practices of decolonizing and reconnecting with deeper roots become more popular, Rojas says people need to pay attention to how they follow this process.

“I'm not going to go reconnect with like, Ojibwe practices, for example, like, that's not gonna vibe with me. You know, that's not who I am,” they said. "So when Catholics rolled up on the shores of Mexico and tried to convert everyone, they tried to connect different saints to different deities and different powers," Rojas said.

Denise Sheehan in foreground on right describes herself as a Conscious Evolution Coach, Reiki Master Teacher, Shaman, Stargate Experience Facilitator on her LinkedIn.

While there are many Latine leaders like Rojas who are practicing Indigenous traditions in Reno, several non-Latine people have also taken up such practices, including Denise Sheehan, who coordinates a program called Sky Spirit Shamans.

Sheehan, who has an English degree from the University of Nevada, Reno, then worked there from 1997 to 2009 as a prevention specialist, before getting into the spiritual business.

Sheehan describes her experience in shamanism as something serendipitous. She faced multiple near-death experiences and then realized that they led to visions and her finding her purpose in life through shamanism.

“There's so much more to our experience that's mysterious,” she told us, detailing her own evolution. “And I feel like that's the draw to spirituality, and for some to religion. But there's this, there's this miraculous essence of ourselves. It's so much more than just this human experience. And being able to access that is like the gateway to accessing the divine or the infinite or spirit or source or, often times, this may be a little out there.”

Sheehan faces several challenges, including being a white woman now practicing shamanism, which might be viewed as appropriation or just not natural. 

“For me, there always has been questioning around the practices that have come to me, how they're to be shared, how to honor them with the utmost respect,” Sheehan says. “And I do feel like they came to me in a very serendipitous way. I was not seeking them and did not ever think I could have access to them.”

Sheehan also thinks that the Latine community in Reno and others are starting to find peace in ancient, Indigenous practices.

She also thinks that she should be helping in perpetuating the narrative of decolonizing religion. It is stated in her bio online, “Though my life has held deep trauma too, I was raised with privilege that comes from being white-bodied.  I acknowledge, regret, and to the extent possible, apologize, for the ancestral harm caused by my ancestors and those who conquered and colonized, with lingering destruction that exists into the now.”

She believes that decolonizing religion is a part of her mission and in the process, she connects more with a different part of her lineage. “And I have worked with, you know, all of the races, and it's been really helpful too, to see that connection, that people come alive when they don't have a connection to their own ancestry,” She said. “And all of a sudden, they're able to access their families, their ancestors, through journey work and connect directly with their lineage, which is really beautiful. And it's offered me the opportunity to do that with my own lineage too, even though they're from somewhere completely different, but they've done a very honoring of that.”

Among traditional Catholics in the community, there is still pushback to shamanism which is viewed by some as misleading and even dangerous. Some say shamans use drugs to induce certain experiences. Others who practice Catholicism partake in syncretic practices– mixing Christian rituals with Indigenous beliefs.

Take for example egg cleanses, which is originally a shamanistic ritual to cleanse the spirit of bad energy. In Hispanic culture, if someone is seemingly sick out of nowhere they sometimes assume they have been given what’s known as “the evil eye”. This is when the egg cleanse is practiced in which an egg is rubbed all over the sick person’s body to rid it of the bad energy.

Many Hispanic Catholics, like the family of UNR student Nancy Vasquez,  perform these cleanses despite the “witchcraft” it comes attached with. Many also use other herbs and prayers to try and heal all sorts of ailments that sometimes don’t even have medical proof of effectiveness in combating that sickness. These practices, linked to Indigenous lineage, point to a movement of decolonization within the Latine population in Reno and the U.S. in general, many times mixing in with Catholic religious practices.

One reporter on our team Alexandra Couraud participated in a private shamanic session with Peruvian Shaman Fabiola Boughman.

Boughman immigrated to Reno 20 years ago and ever since, she says, her ancestors told her to heal others through the special gifts of the divine they gave her. She specializes in working with women and feminine energy and has been working for her clientele from her house in South Reno.

During the session, Boughman started by cleansing the room and calling on archangels to be present and guide her through her ritual. After this, she began reading the aura and energy of Couraud. She was then hit by images from Couraud’s past lives which she discussed at length. This brought out many traumas from Couraud’s past. 

After the session Boughman, advised by her ancestors and the archangels, gave Couraud an energetic cleansing in which she used several sound instruments as well as her hands to pull any traumas and negative energy out of Couraud.

Couraud says that “while I do not know the exact powers Fabiola holds and I do not think she in any way replaces therapy, I do know her work as a Shaman–connected in the roots of her Indigenous ancestors– inspired me to release my own traumas and to begin to validate my own story.”

In a sense that is what decolonization can represent and what Indigenous-rooted spiritual practices can bring about. It is a way for people to validate their own stories, to heal past wounds and to redefine who they are.

Reporting shared with Our Town Reno by Hadi Eltahlawi, Alexandra Couraud, Nancy Vazquez and Lynn Lazaro

Ashlyn Surviving on Reno's Streets: "Home is Wherever your Heart Is"

Ashlyn, 39, originally from Kingsport, Tennessee, says she chooses to live on the streets of Reno.  To her, the concept of homelessness does not exist because the city itself is a big mansion of God, she says, where there is a room for every night.   

She admits living on the streets is a struggle though.  Some days the struggle includes jumping into the cold Truckee river to wash and bathe.  Other days the struggle can get to the point where sleeping inside a trash bag can save her from freezing to death. 

Her strength comes from within, she says.

She delights in being honest with herself and others. She finds purpose in helping those around her; and finally, she’s proud to be free from drugs and alcohol for over twenty years. 

Ashlyn believes most parents do not take advantage of the time they have with their children.  Family, she emphasizes, is the most important part about life that no one should take for granted.  With that, her heart wishes nothing but happiness to her children–wherever they may be. 

“As long as you give it your all–no matter what throughout your life–at least in the end you know that there wasn’t anything else that you should’ve done different or that would’ve made it better or any less worse,” she says.

“Home is where you lay your head at night and home is wherever your heart’s at.  So, wherever your heart is, that's where your home is.”  

Story and photos by Eneida Castaneda Sanchez 

Renown and Other Local Hospitals Struggle with Nurse Shortages

Despite incentives and sign-on bonuses of up to $30,000 being offered to new nurses for their first two years, Renown Regional Health is still experiencing a shortage in this fundamental medical position, according to multiple employees at the hospital.

COVID, which caused a decrease of nurses and a lower amount of those going to nursing schools, intensified a pressing need to hire and train more medical professionals. The pandemic increased already high workloads and stress levels, with several nurses we spoke to saying they are considering a new line of work, or taking time off to think about their options.

A campaign to hire 500 more nurses and physicians across Northern Nevada was introduced last February by Renown, in a push to meet the needs of the community, but those have fallen short so far.

In an email response, Caroline Ackerman, the Manager of Communications & Public Affairs at Renown, said that employees have “felt the burden of picking up additional shifts to ensure [they] have the coverage needed to care for our community.”

At the time of our recent interview, Ackerman said that 147 new employees had been hired since the February campaign launched.

Meanwhile, departures also continue. The average age of nurses is becoming older, with early to mid-career nurses often looking for higher paying, lower stress jobs with insurance agencies or health consultant companies.

For nurses who already work 12 hour shifts, the burnout can come on quickly. The same goes for CNAs, or certified nursing assistants. These clinical employees are essential to registered nurses and patients, changing out patients’ clothing, taking vitals and cleaning up patients’ rooms.

Natasha Marko, a CNA apprentice at Renown, explains that bedside burnout, which can range from a mental health drain to worrying that you haven’t done enough for the patients under your care, has become a serious issue for clinical workers.

“We do the dirty work,” Marko says, when describing the work that she does as a CNA apprentice. Having about 12 patients at a time to clean up and check in on, a long shift can become “grueling,” she said.

She doesn’t feel her growth is being encouraged either, and that others around her at Renown give her indications they want her to stay in the position she is in now.

“Since I started being a nursing apprentice, they said, ‘don’t go to nursing school, you don’t want to do it.’” This reflects a structural problem of fewer incoming nurses.

At the state level, it’s estimated Nevada has 4,000 fewer nurses than the national average in terms of RN to population average. One solution which has been proposed is to create a nursing compact, which allows licensed nurses, in good standing in their home state, to practice in any other compact state, of which there are already 39.

Union leaders oppose this saying it’s the local working conditions which need to be improved first and foremost to address the nursing shortage.

During the pandemic, the trend of hiring more expensive travel nurses also took off, to follow where the COVID hotspots were, but with pay disparity, and a mercenary attitude, this created jealousy and further broke down local systems with local nurses also leaving for these positions, according to several nurses who spoke to us anonymously.

Another idea is to increase the pay of nurses in academia, to give a new boost to nursing schools facing their own shortages and decreased enrollment.

At the Congressional federal level, Rep. Nanette Barragán (CA-44) recently introduced the Support Faculty and Expand Access to Nursing School Act to provide grant funding through the Department of Health and Human Services to nursing schools to allow them to expand their capacity to train nurses by hiring more nursing faculty. With a divided Congress though, analysts say it’s a long shot.

The current situation has led to a thriving criminal industry of bogus nurses with fake diplomas, further complicating the search for competent, qualified nurses.

“We just need more pay and more of us to divide the work,” one of them who is thinking of taking a break and getting another degree told us anonymously.

Our Town Reno reporting and photos by Ember Braun

European Fitness Center Under the Weight of Angry Internet Comments and Reviews

The European Fitness Center on South Virginia street has become the topic of angry discussion online, channeling frustrations over alleged predatory membership practices.

In March 2022, a thread was started in a Reno, Nevada, community Facebook group by a disgruntled community member who had what they described as a far from ideal experience at the gym, also known for its faux golden entrance art of Atlas perhaps holding a globe.

The original post, about allegedly shady billing practices and pushy employees, garnered over 175 comments from community members who have had similar experiences, with a handful of commenters leaving positive, glowing reviews in the mix.

The dominant negative comments can be found on other threads through local Facebook groups as well as on Yelp and Google reviews, leading Our Town Reno reporters Gaia Osborne and Arianna Pride to dig deeper. Gym ownership didn’t respond to queries for an interview, but the reporters went on their own trial experience at the gym, followed up with disgruntled internet commenters and also found previous court documents.

When signing up for a gym in Reno or elsewhere, it’s customary to go there beforehand to scope out the facilities, equipment, and overall environment before committing financially to anything. 

Often gyms will offer a free week membership to attract potential new customers and draw them into their establishment. These trial periods are usually non-committal, with gym goers sometimes putting down a small deposit to cover a lost or non-returned key.

At the end of the free trial, they can choose whether to continue on and sign up for a membership, or walk out of the gym, no money lost.

When choosing to pass, you definitely wouldn’t want the gym to begin billing you and demanding payment for a membership you didn’t sign up for. But this is what some of the commenters say is happening at the European Fitness Center for the past few decades.

The Better Business Bureau indicates the gym has been around 38 years. It has a D- rating there, and two publicly viewable negative comments.

On its own website, the gym describes itself as a “family-oriented, comfortable and affordable full-service fitness center,” boasting a fully-equipped gym and workout area, as well as a health spa with an indoor swimming pool, a tanning and beauty salon, hair salon, barbers, and an accident injury clinic. It’s marketed as a one-stop shop for all things health and fitness, offering members every facility and class they could possibly need.

As part of the angry comments, several locals said they had entered a giveaway held at the local pizza chain Blind Onion, “winning” a free month-long membership to European Fitness Center. 

However, after trying out the gym, they said they experienced pushiness from gym employees, received incomplete information regarding paperwork and waivers, and were charged even before deciding to join.

This is echoed throughout the Facebook thread mentioned at the top of this article. One individual commented: “I went in to take a tour and decided not to sign up and they still sent me to collections.” Another wrote: “The owner tried to take me to collections for a balance of $80. Place is a joke.” 

A Yelp review posted by Kenneth M. in April of this year stated: “I was duped during a special they had going where to sign up for your membership was $30, and then 50 more dollars within the first month for your card. This membership was supposed to be a month-to-month membership, today I tried to cancel my membership, and they told me that I have agreed to a year-long membership, which was not the case and was not explained whatsoever when I signed up. They are intentionally not telling people that to get you to sign the contract.”

There are similar, much earlier accounts. Michele V (last name withheld for privacy reasons) is a longtime Reno local who has haunting memories of her own experiences, which she recollected through a phone interview.

Back in 1993, Michele – then 23 – and her boyfriend at the time says she won a free one-month membership at a home show at the Reno Convention Center. 

After going in, Michele said they were quickly taken into a small room with a desk full of papers. “Right away, the employee was telling us the paperwork was just for insurance purposes, asking us to sign our names so we could walk around freely. I started feeling weird about the whole thing, but I was young at the time and didn’t really know any better,” Michele explained.

“After I signed, they had me leave the room and separated my then-boyfriend and I. My boyfriend at the time was on the spectrum, and I think they recognized that and cornered him. He didn’t know any better at the time,” she remembers.

When this occurred, Michele was living in Sparks. After looking around the gym, they decided not to sign up and to find a place closer to their home to join instead. “When we visited, nothing monetary was talked about. Nothing indicated that what we were signing had anything to do with finances, they told us it was just for insurance. And, oh my goodness, a few hours after we got home, our telephone was ringing off the hook. Every half hour, 45 minutes. Mostly every 20 minutes.” 

It was the European Fitness Center blowing up Michele’s home phone, demanding they return and pay an outstanding fee. Despite Michele’s protests about not signing anything of that nature, they would not relent. “They were rude. I’ve never talked to anybody like that on the phone. Extremely unprofessional. They were talking to me like I was a bad person, and threatening to get us put in jail if we did not pay. It was a ridiculous fee, $150 per person which was a ton of money back then. Our cable bill was only $9 a month.” 

Michele never returned to the gym after finding out the paperwork they signed had a membership clause, and that it wasn’t just strictly for insurance purposes. For the next two years, Michele would receive phone calls on a daily basis until she decided enough was enough. She said she filed a case at the small claims court for harassment and bad business practice.

For those already members, there is friction as well concerning the pushiness to get new members.

A comment left on Facebook in March of last year said, “When I had a membership I brought a friend and they wouldn’t leave her alone until she signed up. Very uncomfortable environment.” 

Another member, Ehsan, had been living and working in Reno in 2022, and had already made up his mind to sign up when he went to the gym to join.

Ehsan talked about his experience at the gym in a phone interview. He said that during the sign-up process, he was told he must put down three references as ‘emergency contacts,’ which you’d think would be in case something happened to Ehsan, like getting injured while working out. 

 “The next day, they were calling every single one of those three references who were my coworkers. They were telling them that I was introducing them to this gym and they should sign up too as soon as possible. They were literally using my name and who I was,” Ehsan explained. 

“I called the gym to tell them to stop calling and bugging my coworkers. They’d called them not just once, but three times. Every single one of them.”

During the sign-up process, Ehsan explained to the gym employee that he was in between moving and would only need the membership for the next month or so. “They told me that I could terminate or cancel my membership whenever I want. But there was no clause about the cancellation in the terms. I told them I wanted it in the contract, and they said the documents were old and the new ones hadn’t been printed so they ‘made a note’ about it,” said Ehsan. 

The no-strings-attached cancellation Ehsan was promised turned out to be more convoluted than Ehsan originally thought, and when it came down to him skipping town, he says he had to pay for a few months of membership fees to cut ties with the gym.

Digging on the internet, we were able to find that Simon Abittan, the president of the European Fitness Center, was previously sentenced to five months in federal prison and fined $180,000 for defrauding several insurance companies and double billing customers at European Health Care.

The European Fitness Center houses many separate entities within their gym, with the word European, such as the European Wax Center, as part of their concept of being an all in one destination for health.

“An investigation revealed that Abittan was involved in a scheme that was double billing for services provided on a customer's initial visit by misusing codes for physician consultations and chiropractic care, inflating bills by charging for more expensive services than those actually performed, and submitting bills for manual massage therapy that was not provided,” the 2000 statement from Nevada’s office of the Attorney General indicates.

In order to get a firsthand experience, one of our reporters toured the facility. Here is her own recollection:

“Like many, I was intrigued by the many amenities on hand. We first headed to the pool area which was a smaller, more intimate area that held saunas as well. The pool area seemed to be maintained pretty well, however, I wish that visitors were not allowed to walk through the area with outdoor shoes on (for sanitary reasons). 

I was also shown the nail salon as well as the chiropractic unit that was located near the pool. We then headed to the main machine and free weights area, which had about one or two of each machine on hand. I am personally unaware of how many members the European Fitness Center has, however, it seems as if it would serve a smaller number of people.

Their weights section is a bit smaller in comparison to many other gyms around the area. However, their cardio theaters house many treadmills and walking machines. Throughout the rest of the facility, there were other amenities such as a hair salon, a barber shop, a tanning salon, as well as a nail shop.

After I was given the tour, I sat down with the manager David to talk about signing up for a membership. I was given the run-down that included being made aware of the current special that was going on. This included paying only $20 a month instead of a $60 monthly fee. After a year, you are also grandfathered in the plan, which allows you to pause your membership at any time (after a year contract), he said. I decided to let them know that I won’t be signing up today, however, if I did want to sign up for a membership, I would have to physically come back in to start that sign-up process. 

I personally was intrigued by all of the bells and whistles this facility has to offer. I was not able to experience a trial period, but I think that that would be a more in-depth test to see how the gym's equipment and amenities hold up. The main demographics of the gym also seem to be older and younger men. I did see a couple of women at the facility, however, the weight and sauna sections were mainly occupied by men. 

Overall, the European Fitness Center seems to be a place that offers many great additives to the general workout facility. Many people have mixed feelings about this facility, but from the outside looking in, the amenities make it a very intriguing place to be.”

Despite the barrage poor reviews, there are also many people on Yelp and Google who are delighted with their experiences at the European Fitness Center. 

One Google reviewer states, “This place is whole vibe package deal in one building, Affordable with everything from gym, swimming pool to sauna ,spa tanning room, hair, nail...etc..def worth checking out.” 

Another member on Yelp who is extremely satisfied wrote: “I've been a member of European Fitness for 15 years. They are always professional and polite. They've been doing an incredible (job) during the Governors [sic] mandates the past 10 months.  The gym is clean and sanitized. Members are asked to mask up and all equipment is socially distanced. If you're looking for a great environment with free personal training at a great rate Europe is the gym to try!  Simon and staff keep up the great work!!”  

Yet another Yelp reviewer decided to debunk the bad reviews: “I read all the terrible reviews on Google and yelp and was for sure expecting the place to be a disaster with so many negative reviews; numbers don't usually lie. The sole issue with this gym is its recruitment and sales practices, specifically the "contract.” The management here is big on the contract approach and in my opinion, it is working against them horribly. Every one of the negative reviews is from someone that signed a contract and stopped paying it. ALL THE BAD REVIEWS ARE FROM (PEOPLE) BREAKING CONTRACTS. The management here is great. On one hand, I believe these negative reviews are unwarranted. On the other (hand), this place needs to move away from the contract strategy and start a new business model.”

European Fitness Center did not respond to our efforts to give their own views on all the negative social media comments and reviews.

While the gym boasts a wide range of amenities and attracts customers with various offerings, there have been persistent complaints about its pushy sales tactics, billing practices, and lack of transparency. 

More internet digging had one article from January 2nd, 2011 in the Northern Nevada Business Weekly, identifying Abittan as the owner of European Fitness Center since 1985.

As part of the gym craze for New Year’s resolutions, the article indicated “the health club also has waived enrollment fee for new members a step it hasn't made in 25 years.”

The article gave indications of tactics, saying that winter months were key to the gym’s survival.

"If we don't turn over big numbers it can get challenging in the summertime," Abittan is quoted as saying in the article. The NNBW then explained that the gym had “put together a three-month television advertising blitz beginning in late December and hired additional service, membership sales and maintenance staff to keep pace with increased activity at the health club.”

Recurring complaints make you wonder how many gym goers were reeled in then, and how many were left with headaches and feeling conned/

A former UNR student wrote in 2022 on the Better Business Bureau website: “I tried cancelling, but when I did they pulled out the contract and showed me the fine print in a specific area of the contract, saying I was locked in for the year and that they would continue to charge me. Since then I have cancelled my card, but now they have sent my info to a collection agency that has been demanding and harassing me to pay the entire year membership PLUS an insane “late fee” or else they will take “further action”. I was harassed and pressured into signing a contract that was deceitful and not clear with what I thought I was getting myself into…. I feel completely ripped off and wished I had never stepped foot into this business for my nonexistent “free week pass”.

The status of the complaint? Unanswered.

Our Town Reno reporting May 2023

What Legacy will Junkee Leave Behind in Midtown?

Junkee, which just turned 15, is an iconic spot in Reno, in Midtown, heck even in all of Nevada, known for its vintage items, its gritty exterior and kaleidoscopic inside.

Junkee was one of the original Midtown shops that helped make Midtown the eccentric place it is today, mixing the old with the new, bringing in both locals and tourists.

Since then, it’s been a commercial anchor to a changing Midtown, one now being lifted out of its rising rent waters, and soon shipping sail. So we thought it would be a good time for our own appraisal.

Everyone in Reno knows it and it seems like everyone has an opinion about it, from very good to very bad. Some remember all too well comments made by owner Jessica Schneider during Reno’s own Black Lives Matter protests.

Before we get to that, let’s revisit the back story. Schneider was an interior designer until the recession hit in 2008 and she was out of work. She turned her creativity to a new endeavor- Junkee, a unique thrift and antique store that contains so many items for sale that hours can be spent perusing the store.

Walking in is like walking into a whole new world- bright costumes to the right, intricate antiques to the left, there is always something to catch the eye. Every time we wander the store, we leave with a little treasure that could not have been found anywhere else.

The inside of different areas of Junkee. You can find anything from an outfit for Burning Man, the next Reno crawl to your new favorite piece of home decor. Photos by Bethany Bodine. Graphic by Josie Hester.

Junkee has quite a few exciting qualities, as many Reno-ites already know. For starters, it is a huge hit with the Burning Man crowd. As thousands of people flock to Black Rock Desert for Burning Man every year, many stop in Junkee to pick out the perfect fit for the festival.

“Midtown actually started with Junkee!” wrote Heather Puckett, who only agreed to be interviewed via email. “Jessica and a few other Midtown founders knew the community wanted a local district to have something to do that wasn’t gambling, so they started recruiting other businesses to the area.”

A sign located in Reno Public Market, Junkee’s new home beginning October 1. Photo taken by Josie Hester.

This summer though and Burning Man will be the last for Junkee at its current location, which it was never able to purchase. By October 2023, Junkee is scheduled to move into Reno Public Market. It’s also opening another location called Uncle Junkee, which will be at 111 N. Virginia St., right across from City Hall. It will try to cater to college students as well in that location, where there used to be a Woolworth’s, selling outfits for pub crawls, stickers, souvenirs, furniture, Halloween costumes, playa wear and vinyl records.

As it adapts, according to Puckett, Junkee remains a great place to work. She wrote: “Junkee is an amazing place to work because it allows you to have fun, be creative, and feel empowered after a hard day’s work!”

But, according to an ex-employee, the story is a little different.

We spoke to an ex Junkee employee, who has asked to stay anonymous. The ex-employee worked at Junkee post-pandemic, for the Burning Man and Halloween season. When asked about their experiences working there, they instantly had a lot to say.

“Everything I wear tends to be thrifted,” our source said. “I love fashion so I was excited to start working there.”

Their excitement wore off quickly though when the actual work began. They said that lots of concerning comments were made during staff meetings. Our source said things along the lines of, “If you are delicate, you won’t do well here,” and “If you’re not a go-getter this job will be tough,” were reiterated during team meetings.

Our source, though, wanted to give working at Junkee a chance. They are an active Burning Man goer, and wanted to be able to work for a place that welcomes that community. The further they got into their position, though, the worse the conditions became they told us. They said that there were uncalled for rules, such as no sitting on the job. Management would even criticize their walking.

They said if they were not walking at a certain pace or with a certain attitude, management would often tell them, “walk with purpose!” Our source, who works with a disability, found it hard to work under these circumstances. They said that no accommodations were made, or even allowed.

In the end, our source ended up getting let go from their position at Junkee, shortly after Halloween. They claim that management told them, “you’re too depressed to work here.” They went on to describe the entire experience as “traumatizing” and that they had tried to “block it out of their head.”

Of course, employees, ex or current, will always have a different viewpoint than customers.

Painted on the door of Junkee, a now hiring sign. Other previous employees have also told Our Town Reno about a tense work environment, which led to their own departures. Photo by Bethany Bodine.

Despite their experiences, our source still defends Junkee, saying they strive to be a size-inclusive shop, which can be difficult at times when depending solely on donations for a curated vibe. As for the public, several stints from the owner have left locals wondering if they should continue supporting Junkee. Now let’s take a look at the history of comments made by the owner.

During the height of the Black Lives Matter Movement, things for Junkee got a little out of hand, through Schneider’s own doing. On the biggest day of protests in Reno, people stormed City Hall. Schneider immediately posted on Junkee’s Instagram business account, shaming some of the protesters entering a ransacked City Hall. Several young women were wearing short overalls and slippers. Schneider commented, “How embarrassing for them! #nextsizeupontheoveralls #slippersreally #yououtgrewthoseinthethirdgrade.”

Screenshot taken by user FamousTask6 on Reddit.

Many active in Reno social media immediately called out Schneider for the hypocrisy of being a woman running a local clothing business owner tearing down other women. Schneider issued several apologies, deleting the first one and finally saying,”I’m asking for grace and mercy. It was painful. I was angry. I take full responsibility. It was a terrible mistake […].”

Her employees were very disappointed in her actions and words and scheduled an intervention for their boss after the incident.

Despite her apologies, people of Reddit-Reno and on other platforms have been stating their negative thoughts on Schneider since then. Her behavior has sparked ongoing conversation regarding the reliability of Schneider. Reddit users under r/Reno are often discussing Junkee, its ownership, and its effect on Reno. At one point a #boycottjunkee hashtag was started.

A collection of comments from Reddit users in regards to Junkee and owner Jessica Schneider.

When we contacted Jessica Schneider for comment, Heather Puckett responded saying that Schneider was too busy to respond after we sent the list of questions we had.

Regarding the allegations about Schneider, Puckett wrote, “You can’t really have an opinion on someone you’ve never met and sat down and talked to!” We were denied this opportunity as student journalists.

Puckett went on to say that Junkee was an incredible place to work writing, “Jessica is so good to us too: it’s not just a job to her, it’s an investment in people!”

By next Halloween, always busy in the current store, the Junkee Midtown location will be a place of the past, and many in the community are hopeful Junkee will leave all the bad and the ugly behind, taking only the good to its two new homes. Change has not always been commercially viable for Schneider. There was briefly a Junkee in New Orleans on Toulouse St., but its last Instagram post is from 37 weeks ago, and its Google Reviews page says it’s permanently closed.

Our Town Reno reporting by Bethany Bodine and Josie Hester

Local Organizations Provide Support to Immigrants and Undocumented Facing Daunting Challenges

“I felt alone. Since all my peers were documented, they didn't really struggle with the same things that I was struggling with,” said Samuel. 

Born in Mexico, twenty-year-old Samuel is an undocumented immigrant studying nursing in Nevada, who is not eligible for financial aid or health insurance due to his status. 

There are a multitude of organizations and services in the Silver State assisting the immigrant and undocumented community.  

One of these organizations is Make the Road Nevada, which advocates for the well being of undocumented people and newly arrived immigrants, providing community and resources to support them.

Navigating long journeys to get necessary documentation, including visas, waiting for court dates, finding legal work, and trying to keep up with the increased costs of living puts even more pressure on these individuals and their families. 

Reno-based Tu Casa Latina is another nonprofit organization that specializes in humanitarian forms of relief for immigrants. They provide care and support for immigrants suffering from domestic violence, abuse, and trafficking.   

The nonprofit found its beginnings in My Favorite Muffin, a small breakfast cafe on California Ave. It was here that Xiomara Rodriguez, Tu Casa Latina’s founder, began assisting individuals and families with visa applications in 2014. 

After seeing the high demand for this type of help, Rodriguez opened a nonprofit in a small brick building along Terminal Way.  

Now, funded through grants, donations, and volunteer support Tu Casa Latina has helped over 100 women and men seek support for being a victim of a violent crime.   

Working with the undocumented community, Tu Casa Latina also helps immigrant victims of crime obtain visas. There are three main visas that immigrant victims of crime can apply for; The U visa, the T visa, and the VAWA visa.  

“We don’t have any control over the visa time, but we do have a victim resource advocate who can outsource resources that a victim may need,” Tu Casa Latina’s Outreach Coordinator Yolanda Arzola said.

“Most of our immigrants assume the role of belonging while staying in the shadows because they know their status can be used against them,” said Tu Casa Latina’s Executive Director Sandra Quiroz of residents who remain undocumented.

“If an undocumented immigrant is told to work for 80 hours they may only get paid for 40 hours,” she said. 

Quiroz also touched on the high cost of living, and how some Reno landlords are using an undocumented immigrant's status to charge them more than their non-immigrant neighbors.

“Some landlords are charging three times the amount for the application, and then some will charge you five times for the initial deposit entering into the home,” she said.    

Challenges like these under an already complex immigration system are what drew Reno local Karen Monrreal to become an immigration lawyer. 

“I believe that everyone deserves the opportunity to live and work in the United States,” she said.  

Coming from parents who are Mexican immigrants, Monrreal personally sees the high volume of both violent crimes and unjust housing conditions in the immigrant community.   

Monrreal explained the increasing cost of living makes it difficult for immigrants to find affordable housing, leading to substandard conditions and sometimes unfair treatment from landlords.  

“The uncertainty surrounding their legal status can make it difficult for undocumented immigrants to find employment, access to healthcare…[or] coming forward as a victim of crime,” she said. 

Monrreal said that her job is both taxing and rewarding: “I have seen the firsthand challenges that immigrants face, but I also see the strength and resilience of the community.”

Another organization working to provide services and support to the immigrant community in Reno, is the Progressive Leadership Alliance of Nevada (PLAN).

Their Northern Nevada Citizenship and Immigration Program helps individuals with adjustment of status and protection. 

Representing immigrants in front of US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), the organization also assists with DACA renewals, and offers Temporary Protected Status to endangered individuals.  

The Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program protects undocumented individuals for renewable two-year periods. Most of PLAN’s current clients are DACA recipients and they adjust the fees for their services depending on a particular individual’s circumstances.

Started in the early 2000s by Rosa Molina, PLAN has been helping the immigrant community for over 20 years.  

Relying on fundraising and donations through the organization's website, individuals get referred based on recommendations from other clients and non-profits.  

“In a lot of the countries where these people come from, there's not much opportunity for them and their families to be able to survive. So they come here to try to find a better future and more opportunities,” said Planning Citizenship and Immigration Specialist Lizette Becerra.

“It's needed, and PLAN provides processing for organizations like USCIS to help and process cases from these individuals so they can move forward with their lives in the US,” she said.

Becerra said that one of PLAN’s biggest challenges in 2023 is the overwhelming need for asylum assistance and the organization’s limited capacity. 

“Unfortunately, attorney fees are very expensive, and so these individuals who are coming into the country are unable to pay those fees because they don't have a work permit,” said Becerra.

When given support, immigrants like Samuel, even when undocumented, are able to inspire change and fight for their futures.

Through Make the Road Nevada, Samuel received the opportunity to go to Washington DC to talk to senators about the immigrant experience and is also advocating for a bill that would provide health insurance to undocumented individuals in Nevada.

He was recently awarded the Dream US scholarship, a full ride scholarship to either UNLV or Nevada State College that was introduced to him by the organization and will be furthering his education at one of these institutions next year. 

“For undocumented students it's kind of difficult. So not having these resources at my disposal was kind of hard. And going around and looking for information was also hard because a lot of times I was given the wrong information and I was led to the wrong path. So Make the Road kind of fixed all of that,” said Samuel.

Make the Road Nevada has recently opened an office along Plumb Lane in Reno, where they now provide boundless resources and support to the immigrant community here as well.     

Charlotte Italiano, Hannah Truby and Sydney Peerman reporting for Our Town Reno 

Debbie Bosco, Working on a Legacy for Change and Support in Her Son Hayden's Name

While nearing retirement as a first grade teacher in the Washoe County school system and being a grandmother in action on evening nights, Debbie Bosco is starting to plan ways to honor her son Hayden, who died by suicide in 2020, just before turning 21, after battling for years with drug use and mental health challenges.

Debbie is thinking of starting an organization called Hayden’s Haven.  One of her goals with this forthcoming organization will be to try to help improve how our local and national systems assist teenagers and young adults with mental health challenges.  Another goal will be to offer informal friendly support for those going through these ordeals, including their loved ones.

“I want to have a place where people who are dealing with this age group, late teens to early adults, can go and just chill and maybe do trips, like skiing trips or something to get them outside. But just so they can be with other people and know that they're not alone,” Debbie explains.

“Hayden was so alone, he was the only one that he knew who had this, who was going through this. But there are other young adults going through this. And so I kind of want to create that for that niche as well as being able to give families a break because it's so hard on the families. I met another mom whose son is the same age as Hayden was and she's in the thick of it right now. And she's going through the same thing now. Now her son is in jail for attacking the dad.” 

Helping this mother is bringing Debbie flashbacks. “You're a prisoner in your home. She's locking herself in the bedroom with her dog. I had to do the same thing.”

Hayden’s Haven will also advocate for wholesale change.  “There needs to be help for the families as well as for these kids,” Debbie said during our recent phone interview. “They need to know they're not alone. They need to have more wraparound programs. There needs to be more funding. There's just nothing. And [this mom I’m speaking with] she's now getting the runaround. There's just no help and people don't call you back. And it's even worse when they turn 18 because you're completely helpless unless you have gotten some sort of power of attorney prior to that.”  

Hayden was a popular three-sport athlete in high school whose life quickly derailed as a sophomore when he started hearing voices and feeling threatened.

Debbie remembers all too vividly the first morning he came up to her saying he couldn’t go to school. She later learned he had been consuming a lot of cannabis at the time and had dropped acid at a party. 

“He told me that if he went to school, he wasn't going to make it out alive,” she said. “Obviously I'm freaking out as a parent. And he said he was hearing his friends tell him that if he went to school, he would not come out alive. I begged him to tell me who the friend was and when he gave me the name of his friend, who he was hearing it from, it was a friend who had taken his life the year prior.”

With her ex-husband, they decided to take him to the West Hills Behavioral Health Hospital, which is no longer around after shutting down in late 2021. There, Hayden did a three-day stint. Doctors diagnosed him with schizophrenia, a chronic brain disorder which, when active, causes delusions, hallucinations, disorganized speech, trouble with thinking and a lack of motivation.

“That’s what they believed it was,” Debbie recalls. “So, that led us in the direction of trying to find help for him. At the beginning we weren't really sure because he was smoking a lot of weed. So we weren't really sure if if that was causing it or if it was truly that diagnosis. So we went through a year or so of therapy, family therapy, just trying to get to the bottom of that. And then also trying to find a psychiatrist and a psychologist who would see him At the time he was 15, 16.”

Debbie said it was “nearly impossible” to find anyone to see him.   When they did, doctors didn’t take the time to get to know Hayden and “it was just kind of medicine pushing, you know, prescriptions. Just trying to find someone that would actually see him was really hard. Like any sort of psychiatrist out there, they're either booked or they're not taking new patients.”

A year or so later, they started getting help at the Northern Nevada Adult Mental Health Services, known by its acronym NNAMHS. 

“They had started a wraparound program where, if you could get into it, it consisted of a psychiatrist, two case workers and there was another counselor.  One case worker kind of did more public stuff and then one just kind of monitored the paperwork type of thing,” she remembers.

The program was great but there was such “a high turnover rate that it was really hard for him to really bond with anyone,” Debbie said. “It seemed like it was kind of a stopping place for new doctors to, I don't know, if they had to do a certain amount of time in a certain place and then they could move on. No one seemed to stick around very long.”

This is also where Debbie noticed the case workers who really cared about the kids were the ones who were let go or were moved because they didn't follow all the rules. One of them she remembers fondly would have Hayden journal and take him to CrossFit classes and local parks.

The program then abruptly disbanded, Debbie recalls.   “So then we were kind of back on our own. And in the, meantime he was struggling. Like he was struggling hard. He had very distinct voices in his head and some were voices of friends of his. At one point it was my voice in his head and everything that he heard in his head was very negative … it was talking about killing himself.  There were no positives. Even though sometimes he would giggle and laugh at the voices, the negative took over.”

Hayden ended up graduating from high school by getting his GED at home.  

But troubles escalated.  Hayden started going to the house of one of his friends who he was hearing in his head, and slashing their car tires. While he got a restraining order, Debbie was trying to find another psychiatrist and teaching herself about schizophrenia. 

She felt she was losing control, but no additional help from police or doctors was being provided.  

“It was all very discouraging. Like everything was discouraging. They kept saying he had to hit rock bottom, he had to go to jail, he had to do this, and then there would be help for him.”

Hayden went several times to the Reno Behavioral Healthcare Hospital but as he was 18 by then, they would release him on his own with a bus ticket.  

Hayden did an initial short stint in jail for choking Debbie, and she fought to lift a restraining order that was put on him so that he could live with her again. 

Eventually he broke the restraining order against his friend, returning to his home.  “The friend was there and then he snapped out of it. And Hayden called me frantically at work.  I knew he would be arrested because he broke the restraining order and also he kicked in their door. So he did go to jail that time.”

He spent about three months in jail then, which Debbie says for “anyone with mental illness, jail is the worst possible place for them. He can't get his regular meds. They give them whatever they have on hand. And because he was 18, I could not get any information on him. And just every visit you could just see him declining. It was terrible. Like, it's just a terrible time. The only good thing that came out of it was that he was able to get released and get put into the mental health court.”

Established in 2001 by Nevada’s legislature, the court is designed to help people with a mental illness or intellectual disabilities, clearing their records if they complete rehabilitation programs.  A doctor was assigned to him, as well as several case workers.  

Hayden was in the program for a year, which included weekly drug testing, and stayed clean. Still Debbie was worried.  

“He was really good on putting on a good face for other people. So they would never believe me. Like they kind of just would listen to him go by what he was saying in the 15 minute interviews they had, but not listen if I called with concerns because I knew something wasn't right with him.”

Hayden tried to live with his sister for a while, his father wanted to put him in the homeless shelter, but eventually he got housing through the mental court.  After going to weekly meetings, and meeting regularly with doctors, he was graduated from the program in 2020.  

But this is where Debbie believes the system failed him completely.  

“We're in the middle of Covid. Everything now is over Zoom,” she said. “They graduated him and left him and me by ourselves on our own in the middle of Covid to find a new doctor, to find everything new. Like they just dropped us the minute he graduated. There was no other help after. And he took his life five months later. He moved in with me in June. And then he took his life in October of 2020.” 

Hayden’s high school sports highlights can still be found online.

It wasn’t for a lack of trying to find new meaning and purpose, Debbie says.  “It was doubly difficult because it was Covid and he couldn't form a bond with a doctor because it was all Zoom and he didn't know the person. And so now all the drug testing has stopped and all the meetings have stopped and everything has stopped. And he's just, you know, he tried to hold down jobs. He had some really great job opportunities, but in that mental state, you just can’t.”

His sister did a podcast and a tribute video for Hayden on YouTube (see above).  “She didn't want him to be remembered as like this crazy kid who just took his life,” Debbie said. “She wanted people to understand what he was going through because he lost all those friends and he became a recluse. And it was just terrible. I watched the mental decline of my son.”

Debbie had gotten so desperate near the end of his life, she had even reached out to Dr. Phil, the television host for possible help, who actually contacted her, but the timing didn’t work for Hayden to go. 

A screenshot from the tribute memorial video, with Hayden as a beautiful smiling boy.

Debbie views her son as a victim of a health care system which is too expensive and doesn’t care.  

“I tried everything,” she said.  “I looked into other states and the care is so expensive. If you want any sort of good inpatient care, it's totally unaffordable.”

She believes the mental health court system needs to be extended into even longer possibilities of housing with wraparound services, with patients given the time to find the right dosage and combination of medications.

“He never found the right medication,” Debbie said. “There really needs to be some sort of place that people can go that has that wraparound program that is funded well, that won't fizzle out and doesn't have such a high turnover rate of employees. They need those bonds. They need those connections with other people who actually care about it.  They need a place that doesn't feel like a hospital, but they're still being cared for and monitored and can still feel like they're living a life.”  

There needs to be more awareness in schizophrenia in general she says.  “People won't talk about it. It's scary. You know, those are the crazy people who live on the street and I mean, I still have so much more empathy and compassion for them now, you know? When you hear snide comments, it's just, there just needs to be more education out there about it.” 

Going back to old style asylums, where “it’s here's your medication, go to your room,” isn’t the solution either in Debbie’s estimation.  “There just needs to be places where they can still be out in the open, like a trees park-like setting, maybe hold a part-time job, help them with transportation if they need transportation. Hayden was pretty high functioning. He had a car. He was able to get to and from the job, just he couldn't keep up with those eight hour days, that wasn’t working for him.” 

In addition to a Hayden’s Haven program she has thought of herself creating a therapeutic location which she would call Hayden’s House.  “I don't know the ins and outs of that yet,” Debbie said. “It seems a little daunting, but it's a future goal.” 

In the meantime, she has found ways to reconnect with Hayden.  “I listen to a lot of songs that remind me of him,” Debbie said at the conclusion of our interview. 

“On my walks, anytime I see a raven or a penny, there's always some sort of significance with that. Can I feel him closer? I mean, I think that's kind of common for some people. I was there. I was the one who found him. So that was difficult. And I'm still in the same house, so I've turned his room into my office with a lot of his memories around it. So it's very calming for me when I go in there, which might seem strange, but it's gone from a place of sadness to a place of calmness. So I go into his room quite a bit and I'll write on his wall sometimes to him. I make sure on his birthday, to do something, which was November 12th and the day he took his life, which was October 9th, I'm always away. And then I put a little bit of his ashes somewhere so that this year it was Hawaii and then the year before it was Cabo. When he graduated the program, I was supposed to take him from somewhere tropical because he's always wanted to go. And being a single parent, I could never really take my kids on those type of vacations. So I never got the chance. So now my goal is every time I go somewhere I take him with me.” 

Our Town Reno reporting, Spring 2023

Javier Hernandez, Giving Back in Mexico After Finding Success in Reno

Javier Hernandez, 52, came to Reno when he was 15 years old in order to learn English. 37 years later, after finding success in landscaping and real estate in the Biggest Little City, he is giving back, teaching English to kids in Mexico.

Javier was born in San Miguel Zapotitlán, a small town in Jalisco state with a population of around 2,500 people. “It was a scary place,” Javier explained from his current home in northwest Reno just above UNR, in between trips back to Mexico. “My mother was a businesswoman, and she had a restaurant. So I grew up selling hot dogs, and my brother sold tacos. It was just business.”

There were positives too, with Javier’s hometown located close enough to the ocean. “I had free time on Mondays, and we would go and swim in the ocean for hours. We’d play games in the water, that’s how I broke my teeth,” Javier smiled widely, revealing a chipped front incisor. “It was so much fun, my best memories are in there. The ocean,” he remembers.

Shortly after Javier turned 15, he moved to Reno to join his sisters who were already here. “We came with the idea of staying for two years, and then coming back. But my mother missed us too much, so then she came and we decided to stay here,” Javier explained.

“When I first came to Reno I hated it. It felt like there were so many rules,” he said. “Before, I lived in a small town where you could play baseball and soccer in the streets, and there was nothing like that here. And it was just hard as a teenager coming here, not knowing the language and going to school. So it was tough for the first two years.”

Javier Hernandez has made the most of his adult life after finding success, traveling and collecting souvenirs from his trips across the world.

One of his sisters owned a lawn maintenance business, which she sold to him when she moved back to Mexico. Javier was just a senior in high school at the time, but decided to grasp the opportunity.

“I felt ready because I’d worked for three years in my spare time doing landscape jobs. I also worked for my teachers doing yard work for them during high school,” Javier said. “I bought it with the idea that it would help me pay my way through college. But in my second year of college, the business just kept growing and it was good money. I figured I might as well get a contractor’s license and invest more because there was a future here.”

Although Javier made the decision to invest in the lawn maintenance business, landscaping wasn’t what he always envisioned for himself. As a youth, Javi had aspirations to become an actor and during college starred in various plays held by the University of Nevada, Reno, and even featured in television commercials. But the landscaping venture fell into his lap and after meeting his now wife when he was 23, Javier ultimately chose his family and business over dreams of an acting career, and has never doubted that decision.

When the Great Recession hit from 2007 to 2009, the housing market collapsed, leading to a wave of foreclosures and a sharp decline in housing prices across Nevada. Although many homeowners and investors suffered significant losses as a result of the crash, others were able to profit from the downturn by taking advantage of the decline in housing prices – Javier being one of these people. “I decided to buy a house for my mother so she could stop paying rent. But when I bought the house, she moved back to Mexico and ended up staying there six months,” Javier explained. “The house was unoccupied, so she told me to rent it out, which I did. When she came back, she started suffering with dementia. She was asking me, ‘Where’s my house?’ forgetting that she told me rent it. So I started feeling bad, and invested in a duplex.” This is where Javier’s real estate journey began, and it only skyrocketed from there.

Photo provided by Javier of one of the classes he’s been teaching.

During this time, though, Javier never forgot the promise he made to his mother. “She made me promise to do something for her hometown,” Javier explained. “I figured that one of the best promises I could make was to teach English there. English classes there are very expensive, and not something everyone can pay for. Only the rich can afford it.”

Keeping to his promise, Javier, joined by his wife, went back recently and stayed there for six months, giving English lessons to anybody who wanted to learn. They enjoyed their time so much, they decided to go back and do it again. And again. And again. “People started coming from other nearby towns. They begged us, ‘When are you coming back? When are you coming back?’” 

On Javier’s third visit, he brought with him some spare laptops and tablets that his family and friends had lying around, unused and forgotten. On his visits, he now distributes the technology to those that come to his classes so they can access the internet, further their learning, and improve their English even more. “They were so happy to have the laptops and tablets. Especially the kids, they learn best from watching and looking at images. And you can see it in their faces, it’s priceless. They’re very grateful.”

On Javier’s most recent visit, he met with the town’s mayor to ask permission to use one of the community’s multi-purpose rooms. “The mayor told me that other towns nearby have noticed what we are doing here and following it,” Javier mentioned. “They’ve also found ways to start offering free English classes which is great. The purpose is just to teach people how to speak the most universal language.”

In the past year, Javier and his wife have given English classes to over 100 people, he says. “The thing that fascinates me the most is that they learn really fast. Especially the kids and teenagers, they’re very good with grammar. And they known that in the future, learning English will help them find a job.”

He plans to go back several times this year, feeling it’s his duty and his passion now to give back, to see kids from economically challenged environments in Mexico smiling, learning and progressing in English and worldliness.

Our Town Reno reporting by Gaia Osborne

Shawn Jackson, From Surviving at the Cares Campus to Complaining about Bed Bugs at Local Apartments

Who stays at the Cares Campus, how they did end up there, what kind of help do they get and what happens after they get housed? 

These are questions members of the community, included elected officials, often ask.  Due to Washoe County not giving access to people staying at the compound, it’s not easy to report about.

Shawn Jackson, 61, a former bus driver who faced serious health challenges and multiple surgeries a decade ago forcing him to quit work, is one person willing to share his experiences.

He’s doing so because he’s been angry about his current living arrangements after staying several months at the Cares Campus.

“Since I've even been here, man,” he says of the Vintage at the Citi Vista senior apartments at 650 Record Street where he’s living, “I’ve been having bed bug problems and stuff. I have to try to get out of here and get out of this situation I'm in.”

Jackson describes the bed buds as a living hell.  He’s tried to complain to staff and management at Citi Vista, as well as local health authorities, but to no avail, so far.  He says there was an extermination crew that came once but it doesn’t seem to have changed much.

“They are coming through the vents, they're coming up the walls in here and stuff,” he told us during a phone interview about the bed bugs. “And they’ve been chewing me up like a monster. My arm is swollen and killing me, it’s just unbelievable.”

We contacted Citi Vista to ask about this situation but got no response, outside of an automatic reply from FPI Management, which is headquartered in Folsom, CA.  

How did Jackson end up in Reno and in this type of housing? He says he walked out on a bad marriage in Phoenix, Arizona, and their $300,000 home, took a Greyhound bus toward Salt Lake City and decided to get off in Sparks.

After sleeping in a hotel on Wells Ave, a cab driver took him to the Cares Campus the next day, where he stayed for over four months. 

A first counselor there wasn’t of much help, but he says a younger second one helped him immensely, and gave him hope, as he struggled on the compound.

“I’ve never, you know, come to a place like the Cares Campus in the first place,” he remembers. “And then it was a zoo as far as I was concerned because, you know, you got a lot of different types of people in there man. And a lot of them seem like they need help real bad and you know, you could see them helping some people. When I got there, I even seen them helping a lot of the older guys who didn't need to be in there. A lot of those people in there don't want to stay in there.” 

He says while he stayed five people he knew of died while at the compound.  

A photo from inside the Cares Campus, where sleeping arrangements have been cramped.

Eventually, Jackson was able to find his apartment at Citi Vista on Record street to share with another former Cares Campus resident who is 71.  Together they split the $1200 rent, paying with their Social Security benefits.

Now that he’s better recovered from his surgeries and facing dire living conditions, Jackson has started working again, finding some employment through temp agencies.  

He’s also trying to get back to driving buses, with his former counselor at the Cares Campus helping him try to get his birth certificate back for that to be able to happen. 

“Every time I got something going on, she'll try to help me,” he said. “She's really good at her job and I really appreciate her very much.”

Jackson says he likes it here, despite the “tricky weather,” or complaining that getting paperwork done takes time in the Biggest Little City.

“This is the first city I’ve ever been in where it takes that long to do everything,” he said during our interview.

While he tries to get his life back in order though, he feels the bed bugs are his biggest challenge, driving him crazy, and stopping his progress.

“There are bed bugs, everywhere, even in the laundry room, in the dryer, all over me. I mean they bite me so much, I can't even hardly sleep at night. Others are scared to speak up but I'm not a person who is scared to speak up. Why would I be? I’m paying rent, I’m the victim here. It is hard doing stuff … because every night I got to wake up and slap a bug, kill a bug, find out where it’s at, you know, there’s blood on the walls, they are climbing on my bed, they’re all in my pillow, I’m just trying to keep these bugs up off of me man.”

Our Town Reno reporting, May 2023

What's That Construction Project? 9300 Gateway Drive

According to Zillow, the 9300 Gateway Drive property in South Reno was recently bought for five million dollars over its estimated value.

The buyer? Leggera Development, a developer group with numerous properties in southern Nevada, which has as its tag line, “Reinventing the Blueprint for Modern Development.”

Their About Page indicates they are “Creating Top-Quality Institutional-Grade Apartments And Build-To-Rent Communities In Las Vegas NV, Reno NV, And Phoenix AZ.”

The website indicates they will be constructing a “79 unit two-story town home development in South Reno at 9300 Gateway Drive.” 

You might remember a two-story house and a massive tree just up the street from the “South Reno Athletic Center.”

A home built in the year 1918 existed on the lot which also included an additional subunit which was built years later. This property stood the test of a time in a South Reno that has developed expansively of late, favoring suburban neighborhoods and tech industries.

This lot is located at the base of Huffaker Park on the south end of the hill in between large apartment complexes and nearby business spaces. The demolition of the property serves as symbol to the transformation of Reno and its economy from 1918 until the present.

Our Town Reno photos and reporting by Will Munson

MacKenzie, a Trans Woman in Recovery after Being Incarcerated and Unhoused

“I was born in Oregon. I came here in 2004 to seek a new life. Oregon wasn't ideal for me anymore, and so I came down this way and started a new life here. My initial thoughts when I first got here was city.  I grew up kind of more in the country, so it was a little different to get used to … but I really like it here. I have two boys from a previous marriage … and my children are here, my wife now is here, so this is home.

But during my time here, I’m not going to lie, I got into some trouble myself here and made my way into the wonderful correctional facilities here. I had to learn a lesson. After I learned that lesson, I stayed on the straight, but still had struggles with addiction. 

I was suffering knowing who I was inside, but still portraying what society wanted me to be at the time, which was male, and not living up to my full potential. It was difficult, it was really difficult. 

Struggling with addiction, I found myself on the streets, on and off. Then I got clean … until I was raped, after coming out in 2019. And that sent me into another spiral and back to addiction, which led me to pretty much find the Our Place shelter.

The first time I was there, it was refreshing. I’m going to say it was very lively. It seemed like they had something positive to do for the community. I stayed there about three different times, on and off, still struggling with addiction, bouncing around with partners, finding the right space for myself. And then ended up going back on the streets. 

I did a little bit of traveling to … find myself. I ended up going to 68 different cities and 11 different states, once again finding my way back to Reno and home . My kids are here, so I wanted to come back to them, but I did get a chance to kind of explore a lot of the Western states … and visit family in Texas, and just see what was out there. 

[People I interacted with on the streets and at Our Place] … I actually ran into a couple of them recently. They're still struggling. Myself being in a better position, I was able to offer them some clothing, some bottled waters out of the back of my car. I always try to keep clothes that I've either grown out of or I've come across and keep in the back of my car for people who are cold and need a little bit of help, you know?

 I made a really good friend while at Our Place and we ended up getting married. So, yeah, she's my star. 

Advice for others? Don't give up. Keep pushing forward. Whatever comes your way, just keep pushing forward. I read something [recently] … on my Facebook. It was really cute. I don't know if I'm gonna say it it exactly right, but it said that a bow and arrow has to be pulled backwards. So if you feel like you're going backwards and struggling in life, just remember that when the arrow is released, it goes forward launching you into successes.” 

Interview and Photo by Vanessa Ribeiro for Our Town Reno

E.M. Starr: Spilling the Beans from Backstage at the Old Harrah’s Showroom

Elaine Sargent – also known by her penname, E.M. Starr – is the author of Rhinestone Confidential, a memoir she wrote of her memories and experiences working behind the scenes in the showroom at Harrah’s, Reno. Within the pages, Elaine recounts the golden days when Reno was a casino town full of late-night shows. She shares the juiciest moments and mishaps from backstage at Sammy’s Showroom, Harrah’s then-hot venue for cabarets and headliners where Elaine worked a wardrobe job. Our Town Reno reporter Gaia Osborne sat down with Elaine to talk about her time at Harrah’s and experience authoring a book.

GO: Can you tell us about yourself and your experiences that informed the writing of Rhinestone Confidential?

ES: Sure! I wrote a book about my experience working backstage at Harrah’s Reno. The name of the showroom was Sammy’s Showroom. In 1992, they made a change to the closer cabaret which featured bands and then showgirl review acts, eventually deciding to close the cabaret and make it into a sportsbook. They made the headliner room into a combination. Shows were twice a night, with an added early show that was deemed good for families – the show girls were covered on top. The middle show was a headliner; Bill Medley, Phyllis Diller, Don Rickles, and many others. The late show was topless. Now, there are no more showgirl revues in Reno, or Vegas either. So, in 2020, when Harrah’s closed for good, I had some time on my hands and decided it was time to write my story. I had left Harrah’s earlier on, in 2007, and I tell the story of that in my book. I ended up with the backstage job actually through UNR. I was a journalism major, but knew immediately that I didn’t want to do hard news. I decided to focus on fashion journalism, but since they didn’t offer that at UNR I made my own study abroad program in ‘89, and moved to New York City to attend the Fashion Institute of Technology. I was enrolled in the fashion journalism program there for one semester. When I came back to Reno, I was a little down at the fact that I couldn’t continue with what I really wanted to study. My sister had told me that she took costuming as an elective, and I had no idea that was even offered. So I enrolled in Costuming 101, starting my path to costume design which I ended up minoring in. I was doing an internship and ended up at Harrah’s in a wardrobe job, which meant I was fixing the costumes, helping the entertainers get dressed backstage to make their quick changes. That job fell in my lap, and that’s how it all started.

GO: What was it like being backstage at these shows? What goes into putting on the shows and making them run smoothly?

ES: It was very exciting being backstage, even though when you do the same show over and over, night after night, it can sometimes get boring. But still, no matter what, you’re backstage, the music is thumping in your ears, and you’re having to move quickly to get people on stage. And then every once and a while, something goes wrong. We had the power go out once, a costume break apart, things like that. We even had an elevator in the middle of the stage that went up and down with the performers in it. It malfunctioned, and so if you have an elevator sticking up in the middle of the stage and a performer going on expecting the elevator to be flat, that can be a problem. Being backstage, there’s always something going on. I loved the shows that we had, almost every show was just incredibly well done. I say almost because we had one little bip where the producer decided that with Cirque du Soleil being such a hit, we should go in that direction. It was our least successful show. But the producer and director, I consider friends. Everybody in that show, the cast and crew, I consider family still and Facebook is great. We are all able to keep in touch. But yeah, the Cirque du Soleil show was not a success. The girls were dancers, not acrobats. And when I say dancers, they were highly trained. But there was crying, there were injuries. But their shows are fantastic.

GO: Were the performers in the show local girls or did they travel from other countries to come and perform at Harrah’s Reno?

ES: That’s a really good question. Most of them did come from all over the world, we had dancers from South Africa and England. But we did have a few local girls. We had two girls from Reno High become gorgeous, beautiful dancers in the shows. One of them even went on to have her own production company once the shows went away. But showgirls originated in France, with a dance teacher named Miss Bluebell. She had a troop of dancers, she called them her ‘bluebells.’ Many girls were too tall to be ballerinas, and so they would gravitate over to Miss Bluebell who had a show at The Lido in Paris. When Las Vegas decided that they wanted to feature dancers, they went to Miss Bluebell who sent over a troupe of her girls. There’s a whole fascinating history, and when I stared off writing I originally wanted to write a book about the history of the showgirl. This was in 1999 I decided I wanted to do this, but there was no internet or easy way or me to research it. 

GO: Without revealing too much of your novel’s content, can you let readers in on just one of your favorite stories or anecdotes that stuck with you from your time at Harrah’s?

ES: Sure. At one point, we had a producer and his wife – he married a performer who was a fantastic singer and dancer. He wanted to feature his wife on stage changing from one blonde to another. The job that I normally did backstage, helping her undress and get dressed into another costume quickly, was going to happen onstage and in front of the audience. And I wanted to quit. I didn’t, but I just had to realize that this was part of my job even though I was wardrobe. Sometimes I had to do things with the stage crew, like pull a curtain or push a prop on or off stage. So I’d stand behind the prop, which was half a dressing room, and I’d be on stage right with a stage tech on stage left. We would push this prop into the middle of the stage and it would join together to become a dressing room. Every night, I’d stand behind this prop and beg for the power to go out or for something to happen so I didn’t have to go on stage. But I did it. And I tell you what, the dancers and singers had their own choreography, and we also had ours. We had to do the exact same thing every single night.

GO: When a new show was coming into town, what did you have to do to prepare for their arrival?
ES: That’s an excellent question. It was huge. In my book, I write about all the different producers that came to Harrah’s. But this one particular producer had the showroom for the last 8-10 years of the time I was there. He had a compound up in Seattle where they built the sets and started making the costumes. Everything would be trucked down to Reno, the crew wold unload the trucks and start finishing the sets. Wardrobe would consist of myself and my co-worker who would work together. We’d come to Harrah’s at eight in the morning and were there until midnight. The girls would be rehearsing and we’d call them down for fittings. We’d take the half-finished costumes, fit them, and do whatever we needed to get them stage ready.

GO: What prompted you to put your experiences onto paper and publish a book?

ES: I was working for the school district, which closed down in March of 2020. We ended up working from home doing distance learning through May. I didn’t have my normal routine, and like a lot of others I felt at loose ends. I would occupy myself, I bought some watercolors and started painting a little bit. Then I saw that one of my favorite authors was hosting workshops. Normally they were in LA or New York City, but because of COVID she was offering them through Zoom. I signed up and did a workshop with her, and after that I was like, I can do this. So I started writing, both in a notebook and on a computer. My daughter and I would take long walks, and I would just think about stuff I wanted to write about. We went back to school in the fall of 2020. I’m a teaching assistant, and instead of being in the classroom they had me at a help desk in the middle of the hallway directing student traffic to bathrooms since there was only one student allowed in the bathroom at a time. So I sat at this table for about four hours a day. I could read, scroll on my phone, some of the other assistants were doing adult coloring books. But I spent most of my time writing in a notebook.

Elaine’s memoir, Rhinestone Confidential, is available to purchase online at Amazon or locally in Reno at Sundance Bookstore (121 California Ave, Reno, NV 89509) and The Radical Cat (1717 S Wells Ave, Reno, NV 89502). A portion of the profits made from book sales will be given to Donate2Dance, a non-profit that collects gently worn dance shoes, costumes and dancewear to donate to dance schools in need across the country.

GO: Did you face any major challenges while writing the book? Did you have trouble remembering some of the finer details from all of the shows?

ES: Definitely. My husband (we met backstage, he was a crew member and did lights), would help answer my questions and if he didn’t know the answer, his friend would. I would message some of my former bosses, and many of the singers. I did thank (hopefully) everybody in the back of my book – I couldn’t have done it without them, there was just too many details I didn’t know. I also got a lot of research books on Harrah’s to make sure I got my facts right. I had a lot of people I could turn to for verification and help, because as a former reporter I wanted to get all my details straight.

GO: In March 2020, Harrah’s Reno closed its doors and permanently shuttered them in June following the coronavirus pandemic. How did the news affect you, seeing as you had spent so much time and had such profound experiences inside that establishment?

ES: It was completely devastating, like a loss in the family. Especially since my husband was still working there at the time. It was going to close anyway, we knew that since it was part of a deal through Caesars and the Eldorado. And then because of the coronavirus, they decided not to reopen. So we knew it was closing in August of 2020, and had made reservations at the steakhouse for one last meal at that fabulous place, and then it was gone. I’d seen all the other casinos close throughout the years, but I never thought Harrah’s would close. I will say though that in the last few years, Harrah’s struggled to keep up with renovations. When I would go there, I felt a little sad because the floor would be kind of empty.

Our Town Reno reporting by Gaia Osborne

A Northern Nevada Non-Profit to Rave About, for Caregivers and Kids in Need

The Northern Nevada R.A.V.E. Foundation was established 27 years ago, in October 1995. The organization received a grant from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, with the main goal of the funding being to help prevent child abuse and neglect of children with special needs and/or disabilities.

In 1998, RAVE was established as a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization and has continued with its goal of providing respite care to Nevada families who look after young children with disabilities, special health care needs, and children in foster care.

“RAVE” is an acronym for Respite and Volunteer Experiences, with ‘respite’ referring to an essential break given to caregivers of children in foster care, or with special needs and/or disabilities.

By providing temporary emotional relief from the constant care and attention parents and caregivers provide day in and day out, RAVE allows them to take time for themselves. To relax, unwind, and enjoy activities they don’t normally have the time to do. After the break, caregivers can return to their crucial role for these children with lower levels of stress and a renewed spirit.

The RAVE Center and its community-based programs provide these completely free breaks to caregivers, while also creating a space for children to be social, learn, and grow in a safe and fun environment.

On April 22nd, RAVE will be hosting their 15th annual ‘An Evening to RAVE About’ at the Grand Sierra Resort, consisting of a buffet dinner and drinks, a raffle, a silent and live auction, no shortage of entertainment, and an after-party. More information on the event and RAVE’s programs can be found on their website: https://nnrff.org/

Korine Viehweg has been involved with RAVE for over seventeen years, starting out as a respite provider and eventually taking over the Executive Director position in 2012.

“When I started here, I was coming in once a month to provide respite specifically for families that had children in foster care. I just fell in love with the work we do here,” Korine explains. “I’m a mom myself, I have five children. When my husband and I get a three-hour window to ourselves to disconnect, that’s special. Here at RAVE, I have the ability to give that break to other parents and be a part of their village in a way.”

RAVE currently has three respite programs that are available to families residing in Northern Nevada and caring for a loved one aged between three months–22 years old with a diagnosed disability, special health care need, or in foster or adoptive care. They also extend their care services to the siblings of the children they serve if they fall into the same age range.

The RAVE Family Center is the longest-running and largest-serving program of the three, providing respite care to families with children aged three months to six years old. The Family Center boasts a very large open floor filled with bikes, play mats, and every possible toy and game a child could possibly want to engage with. Six rooms branch off the main space, each with its own respective theme. There is a room dedicated to infants and toddlers under the age of three, and also children that have limited mobility.

The dramatic playroom doubles up as a make-believe grocery store, and the block room is full to the brim with every Lego color and shape one could possibly imagine. There’s a jungle-themed room which volunteers are in the process of decorating, and an arts and crafts space for the children to unleash their creativity. Lastly, there is a very peaceful and serene calming room, adorned with twinkling fairy lights and peaceful sounds. It’s a highly sensory-based space designed for children who may be feeling overstimulated and require a quieter environment when the main play area gets too loud for them.

RAVE has up to 20 children in the center during a respite session, utilizing the different rooms to break the kids up into smaller groups.

“Many of the children we serve have been diagnosed with autism. We also serve children with cerebral palsy, down syndrome, children with speech impediments, gross motor delays, and hearing impairments. We also have some children with mental and behavioral health diagnoses,” Korine explains.

Families can schedule their children into respite sessions in advance, or even call the center the morning of to access care, as long as there are spots and staff available. Up to four respite sessions can be scheduled each month; “lots of families will schedule one session a week, but some do back-to-back sessions and then won’t return until next month. It’s really whatever works for each family and their schedules, we want them to have flexibility,” Korine adds.

“Some of our parents are single parents, and they’re just getting some me-time. Some of our parents are couples, and the only time they get to spend together without interruption and get time to go on dates is when RAVE is here providing that care and that needed break.”

Approximately 300 children visit RAVE each month across the various programs and the center is funded purely from donations, grants, and year-round fundraising.

The Family Center is largely staffed by local youth volunteers, who are trained, supervised, and educated during every respite session. “We have one paid respite staff member for every five children on the floor, at all times,” Korine explained.

“We also have at least one leadership staff member present at every session as well to make sure there is plenty of support. Our volunteers help make those ratios even smaller so that we can strive for a 1:1 ratio of staff to child. Most commonly we have a 1:2 ratio.” Volunteers go through formal training by RAVE leadership staff, with a strong focus on de-escalation techniques, preventing escalation in the first place, and keeping the children engaged and entertained.

Jada DeLeon started at RAVE as a volunteer seven years ago in order to accrue hours for one of her classes, and later returned to the center as an intern.

She then served as a respite provider for a few years, eventually being promoted to lead respite provider. Jada is now a part of RAVE’s upper management team, tasked with scheduling families and session prep – a very key and important role in ensuring all three programs run smoothly. “I review all the families that signed up for sessions and then assign the children into their groups, make sure staff know who is coming,” Jada explains.

“If I know any tips and tricks with certain kiddos, I’ll write behavior notes down, and prep everything for staff so the session is ready to start as soon as everyone arrives.”

“I started volunteering because I needed hours for one of my classes. It was 32 hours, and I got them all in one month. I loved it – I loved having a buddy, learning about the kids, and being their best friend for 3 hours. When I started as an intern, I was learning more about the back end of RAVE. What it meant before a session even started,  and the different ins and outs of operations. There’s a lot that goes into this program, a lot more than just the sessions alone.”

Todd Warner is the current social work intern, whose experience so far at RAVE has only further solidified his plans to continue into a career in social work and affirmed his passion for working with children specifically. “I love the community that is created here at RAVE. It’s a very positive environment to work in, everybody is always so excited to work with the kids. And the kids themselves are so unique, so special, and bring a lot of happiness and positivity themselves.”

When the RAVE Family Center first opened in 1995 it operated for only six months out of the year, closing its doors for the school summer break.

“Soon after I took over as Executive Director, we received some feedback from a family in our yearly survey. They said, ‘We love everything about RAVE, except for the fact that you throw us back out to sea every summer.’ I thought oh my gosh, why do we do that?” Korine explains. “We started to dig into our reasoning behind closing for the summer, and it really came down to the volunteers who are primarily high school kids themselves.”

In response to this, RAVE added 21 summer sessions to their program and has been providing services for all 12 months of the year ever since. “During our six-month program, we would give about 78 respite sessions a year. Last year we gave 649 sessions.”

Through listening to feedback from more families, RAVE also decided to introduce two new programs; Teen RAVE and Jr. RAVE. Jr. Rave is for children aged 7-12, and Teen RAVE is open to kids and young adults aged 13-22, as long as they’re enrolled in the Washoe County School District. Monthly activities are held for participants of these programs, including outings to mini-golf, bowling, rock climbing, game nights, and cooking classes.

The overall purpose of the programs is to encourage child-to-child interaction and help build on social skills in a variety of community environments. The teen and junior programs have their own dedicated space in the center. Stacks of board games line the walls, the Nintendo Wii sits patiently waiting to be switched on,  and the popcorn machine remains empty but readily available to provide a warm, buttery snack. 

When RAVE first opened its doors to the Reno/Sparks community, they were serving an average of 80 children each year. Last year alone, they served 521 individuals. Despite the significant increase in demand for RAVE’s services, they are yet to turn an individual away. “Right now, our mission is to serve everybody that comes to us. When they come to us ready for a break, they’re usually far past being ready for one.” Korine mentions. “It’s hard to ask for help and take that time away. So when they do ask, we want to be able to say yes and get them in immediately. We work super hard to have a very fast turnover process from enrollment to getting their first respite session, so they can feel that break almost immediately.”

Our Town Reno reporting and photos by Gaia Osborne

Fearing for the Peavine Trails in My Backyard with New Developments

In the northwest corner of Reno, you can find the N letter across from Rancho San Rafael park and the neighborhood just behind it. For me, the neighborhood is the perfect blend of nature and city life–trails just blocks away and downtown Reno 15-minutes away by bike.

In the early morning lights, I’m reminded of what’s at stake with the Ventana Ridge Housing Development planned just north of Peavine Pines Court. Last year it was approved by the Reno Planning Commission, and neighbors here fear for what’s next.

The new housing complex is set to have more than 60 units, and we worry how it will affect our serene surroundings. The arrival of excavators and bulldozers has become a nuisance. What was once my main entrance to a hike with my dogs has become a fenced off area for construction.

Other residents and myself are also concerned about what will happen to the natural habitat and how it will be affected by new construction.

When I first moved to the neighborhood, I would always see cotton tails or jack rabbits on the trails. I would even spot coyotes regularly, but now I consider it a rare and lucky occurrence.

I often think about Reno development and how it affects the people around us. I think that’s at the forefront of most people’s minds, but what about the animals and our natural habitat? Reno is in a unique position because it’s still very integrated with the wildlife around us.

As we continue to enjoy these beautiful trails and the luxury of nature, we should put forth the effort to be protective.

Anonymous Contribution by UNR Student for Our Town Reno