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Originally Posted by OnTrack
I love Reno. 
We lived there in the early 60's, when my Dad was stationed at Stead AFB (long since closed)...and I've been back numerous times.
For a young kid, it didn't get much better than having a root beer in The Bucket of Blood or spending Friday/Saturday nights watching the dirt track racers at Lemon Valley Speedway (also long gone).
A lot of people don't know of the plethora of activities that are close to Reno.
From Lake Tahoe, to Lake Lahonton, to Virginia City.....there's plenty to do on the weekends.  As to feeling safe in TV, we feel as safe here...as any place we've ever lived.
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I loved Reno too. Seemed that was one of the best periods of my life. I earned two B.A.s at the University of Nevada, Reno in December of 1980 and May of 1981 and had started work on two MAs also but changed my direction and left for Brigham Young University's Law School in 1982. Only liked the library work at BYU so dropped out of BYU after a week to go to the University of Denver to get a MA in Librarianship.
I worked for a partnership while in college that had concessions at Idlewild Park (softball diamonds), Slide Mountain (ski training for kids) and at Bowers Mansion. I babysat a large number of girls who were daughters of girlfriends of the partnership owners and worked at some of these places where I was an Assistant Manager.
On the darker side though I attended Earl Wooster High School from 1973 through 1976 and had a teacher who made a huge impression on me and turned me on to books like
Anna Karenina. This was Mrs. Barbara Mitchell who taught English at Wooster while her husband taught English at Hug. On 2-24-1976 their daughter Michelle Mitchell was murdered by three people in a conspiracy to make it look like a serial killer was stalking the Reno, NV, community. They had murdered a person they had some kind of life insurance interest in a few days before but used a different MO in the two killings. The cops never connected the two cases and the conspirators were not caught until 1979 when one of them bragged about killing a girl in Reno. This "confession" was in a Louisiana jail.
2-24-1959 is my birthday and Mrs. Mitchell as well as her family seemed to take a special interest in me because of this.
I would often run into fellow Wooster High grads who would want to talk about the Michelle Mitchell investigation and so forth and this found me looking in libraries all around Reno for materials that might help answer their questions, qualms, fears, etc. I never found much of anything and made it a mission to try to improve the materials accessible in libraries for those who might need this kind of information. I found very little of practical use at various law libraries I searched in as well like those of BYU, the University of Denver, Arizona State U., and the University of Minnesota Law Library. I have been a little too critical about this niche for my own good quite often however to the detriment of my career.
One of my fellow Philosophy students at UNR had been stabbed six times in the heart area and was dead for a few minutes. This was Tom Snow. Cannot recall the exact date of this but events like Michelle Michell's murder as well as the attempted murder of Tom Snow kind of discolored my image of Reno. Tom survived though his ordeal but lost a lot of his long term memory because of the loss of oxygen to his brain.
As you can imagine the Michelle Mitchell case was covered extensively for at least 4 years or so in the Northern Nevada media. It certainly had a long term impact on my choices and such. I got a JD from the University of Minnesota in the Twin Cities in 1989 and had worked as a Student Director in a Legal Clinic for Prisoners at Minnesota Correctional Facilities. So, I saw both sides of Criminal Law while a law student-- defendants' and the state.
I did get encouragement from some U of MN law professors about my work helping survivors/victims of crimes get access to practical information but also was met with some very underhanded tactics from others.