Nevada Magazine, Las Vegas Sun

Nevada Magazine makes mark Lisa Sciortino Friday, June 14, 1996 | 11:59 a.m. From cowboys to casinos, bomb blasts to boating, Nevada Magazine has seemingly covered it all over the last five decades. And done it, in recent years at least, with the help of colorful, scenic photos. However, early editions of the magazine are a far cry from the snappy, picture-laden travel publication we know today. In fact, when the former Nevada Department of Highways first published the magazine in 1936, it was little more than a black-and-white newsletter. "There were a lot of stories about road paving and new state parks. It's kind of funny to read them," says current publisher Rich Moreno, who works for the state entity that now oversees the magazine, the Nevada Commission on Tourism. Moreno has read plenty of back issues in the past year while helping coordinate the "60 Years of Nevada Magazine" exhibit at the Clark County Heritage Museum. The display features six panels of past and present photos, along with several of the magazine's covers. It also spotlights the writers and photographers who have contributed along the way. Among them: Bob Laxalt, brother of former Nevada Sen. Paul Laxalt, whom Moreno describes as "probably Nevada's best-known fiction writer," and David Muench, whose photos have graced the magazine's pages for 20 years. The exhibit is bound together by a narrative history of some of the intriguing people and topics the magazine has reported on. "I think it kind of parallels the growth of the state," Moreno says. For example, it ranges from the classic cowboy covers and bucking-bronco rodeo shots from the '30s to the first nuclear bomb tests of the '50s. One cover featured in the exhibit is of an infamous mushroom cloud and sports the headline "Operation Doom." "That kind of reflects the naivete of the times. There's kind of a wide-eyed tone to the story," he says. Similarly, a 1953 cover photo of Fremont Street marked the first time Nevada Magazine included casinos in its state roundup. "Up to that point, they really didn't acknowledge gambling in the magazine too much." But as any of the magazine's 85,000 international subscribers (about 22,000 of them Nevadans) know, gaming and casino-related entertainment and issues are covered extensively. Also, today's stories "reflect more contemporary tastes" and are shorter than they were 25 years ago, explains Moreno, who wrote for the magazine for a decade before taking the job that eventually landed him the publisher's spot. "We really try to balance," he says. "It's kind of a tightrope you walk. You want to tell people about the good things that are here in Nevada, but at the same time, you don't want to sound like a cheerleader. "I think if a person were to take a year's worth of Nevada magazines, they'd see that it is pretty balanced. There is a spectrum that we cover, but that's the kind of state Nevada is." Of course, "We also still do stories on old-time saloons," he says. They're just mixed in with articles on the theming of casinos and breathtaking desert landscape shots. Next chapter in the Carson City-based magazine's story: It's going high-tech with its own Web page (http:w.travelnevada.com) that features previously printed stories and teasers for current issues. Moreno says putting the page together "has been kind of fun because it's evolving into a Best of Nevada Magazine."