This issue of the Sparks Tribune was published for the week of May 19, 1982, and featured articles about a bright future for the Shy Clown casino and about the hoops reporters jumped through to hear the “political part” of then vice president George Bush’s trip to the Nugget showing his support to Gov. Robert List, as well as Sparks flourishing with redevelopment. Additionally, this week in ‘82 featured an analysis of the movie “Conan: The Barbarian” by Rick Sorensen.

The Shy Clown was given a rebirth to change its image after closing its doors on March 29, 1981. This bright future that two Reno men envisioned for the establishment at 865 S. Rock Blvd. was to be a Western bar and dance hall, a Pizza Baron restaurant and a snack bar in the former casino. When the Shy Clown was a casino it had a high number of police calls because of the nature of its activities, according to the city manager Jay Milligan.

“Wading through Bush security” is something that post-9/11 Americans would not think twice about when trying to see the vice president of the United States. The article by Carol Kirchner gives the play-by-play of the mandatory Secret Service treatment of media in 1982, which is an everyday occurrence that Americans go through just to board a plane in 2010. How times have changed for everyday folks. “They had passed a metal-detector test, had their belongings searched, and been tagged with an official press emblem,” Kirchner wrote.

During the coming weekend in 1982, the high school athletic programs would flex their muscles in the state competitions for spring sports. Also, the high school academic athletes flexed their brain muscle for the first-ever Washoe County Academic Olympics, which dark-horse Sparks High School’s “brain trust” was second to Hug High School in a 405-400 loss. The competition brought together six local schools with a morning filled by eliminations. Sparks and Hug emerged from the pac, both scoring 955 points from questions like: What is simony? What were blacks allowed to do under the Blacks Codes? And, Name seven steps in the consumer decision-making process –– in 10 seconds.

Like many times in the past 28 years, Sparks wanted to make plans for a new hotel and other tourist-orientated ventures to boost the economy. May 1982 was no different. An article above a clever cartoon with Ronald Reagan telling another man that he “Better get ready to take cover…feels like she’s ganna blow any minute now!” while two scouts try to make a spark under a bundle of old wood and tree stumps donning the title of “The Economy.” The opinion article praises the foresight of city planners on their Sparks Town Center Plan, adopted in 1975. With all the closures of tourist-oriented establishments it gave way for new ones to be built on B and C streets. For residents of the time it meant for more jobs, increased property values in the downtown area and freedom from the “destiny” of becoming another Nevada ghost town.

Finally, seeing Arnold “Governator” Schwarz-enegger in his Conan caveman attire was worth the ink. Sorensen really digs into the movie, bashing it for its flat characters and borrowed special effects while giving the lead actor a back-handed compliment for looking “less than completely ridiculous.”