Silver Dollars & Wooden Nickels

The Nevada Appeal's Silver Dollar and Wooden Nickel feature recognizes positive achievements from the Capital region and, when warranted, points out others that missed the mark.

Silver dollar: There's no avoiding turning over a few hard-earned silver dollars to the tax man before April 15, but one Northern Nevada organization is softening the blow by offering free tax preparation assistance to low- and middle-income people.

The American Association of Retired Persons' annual Northern Nevada Tax-Aide program is available in Carson City, Douglas County, Dayton, Yerington, Silver Springs and Fernley now through mid-April. Last year, AARP volunteers helped about 18,000 Nevadans.

SILVER DOLLAR: To the Virginia City High School girls basketball team who lost in the state semifinals Friday.

The Muckers got off to a slow start during their semifinal matchup against Lund in Las Vegas, but showed heart coming back from 16 points down to make it a close game. Lund won 46-43.

Virginia City finished the year with a 27-6 record including a 20-game winning streak. The team garnered a lot of community support with head coach Todd Hess saying, "We're disappointed right now, but once we gather ourselves, we'll see that we've done some things that no other girls team has done at Virginia City."

"If somebody wanted to rob a building in Virginia City, this would be the weekend to do it, because I think most of the town was down here."

Silver dollar: Carson City's move to possibly create a regional health district deserves mention this week. The city started the ball rolling recently when it approved and requested the Legislature pass a bill allowing Carson and Lyon, Storey and Douglas counties to start a public medical board.

According to Carson officials, the district would gain more local control over mental health clinics and be more responsive to the people it served than the state. The district would manage all public health services not covered by the state in the four counties. Residents could use services in any of the counties.

So far, the other counties have expressed interest in continuing to explore the benefits of a regionalized approach to public health care.

Silver dollar: Although we already noted the retirement of state archivist Guy Rocha in a previous column, we can't resist repeating Guy's parting comment at his Feb. 21 retirement party.

"We are entitled to our own opinions, but not our own facts. In turn, we are entitled to our own opinion of the facts, but not entitled to our own facts based on our opinions."

- Editor's note: Do you have a suggestion for a Silver Dollar or Wooden Nickel award? Send your idea to editor@nevadaappeal.com.