Jasmyn Fletcher holds up her son Dakota, 11 months, in front of the Sandy Valley General Store on Wednesday, Dec. 18, 2019. She and her husband, Derrick, own the store.
Sunday, Dec. 29, 2019 | 2 a.m.
The post office in Sandy Valley is more than a place to mail letters or pick up a package. It’s also a country store of sorts, selling everything from dog food to candy and handmade crafts, as well as a community meeting spot.
Kay Searle, an independent contractor for the U.S. Postal Service and the store’s owner, greets nearly all of her customers by name. It happens, but it’s rare that someone who is a stranger to her stops in.
And that’s just the way Searle likes it.
“I moved here 45 years ago. It was the desolation that brought us here,” said Searle, one of some 2,000 people living in this isolated community about 50 miles southwest of Las Vegas.
Residents of Sandy Valley often refer to Las Vegas as “town,” and most don’t feel like they’re missing out on anything the sprawling metro area has to offer.
Besides the post office, there’s the Sandy Valley General Store, the Idle Spurs Tavern and the Cluck-n-Moo Cafe. There’s a church, library and senior center, as well as a K-12 school under one roof. And that’s really about it.
Many residents have four-wheel ATVs, or quads, which can be seen zipping around town. For some, it’s their only motorized vehicle. For residents who prefer a greener form of transportation — and not electric cars — there’s a hitching post at the general store for horses.
“You can just live your life here,” said Searle, who decided to stay in Sandy Valley after her husband died 15 years ago. “People here look after other people, but they don’t bother you.”
Derrick Fletcher, who runs a small lighting supply company in Las Vegas, and his wife, Jasmyn, bought the general store about a year ago, shortly after moving to Sandy Valley. It’s bigger than Searle’s store and sells everything from milk and bread to goat feed and tobacco. There are even plans to add the town’s first gas pumps.
High school sweethearts who got together later in life, the couple grew up in a small Vermont town and often thought about raising their family in a similar setting. The couple brought three boys into the relationship and have an 11-month-old son together.
“I always wanted to live on a ranch, something similar to what I grew up with in Vermont,” Jasmyn said. “Derrick and I started fantasizing about the life we could have here with our boys. We live five minutes from the store, and I sometimes ride my horse here. Customers ride their horses here all the time; we have ties for them.”
When Derrick first mentioned buying the store, Jasmym said, “I thought he was crazy, but here we are. He has these ideas and he just makes them happen.”
Jasmyn, who played basketball at UNR and the University of North Carolina about 20 years ago, worked for a time as a model in Los Angeles after college and still talks to friends who remain entrenched in the L.A. lifestyle.
“My L.A. girlfriends think I’m nuts, but I tell them this is who I always was,” she said.
Charlotte Owens, who moved to Sandy Valley from South Carolina in 1993, said she wouldn’t want to live anywhere else.
“My youngest son had asthma, and the doctor said I needed to get him to a dry climate. We were in Vegas for a little over a year before we moved here,” she said. “I just fell in love with the place. I wanted my children to get back to the country style of living that I grew up with.”
Owens, who is a member of the Sandy Valley Citizen’s Advisory Council — the town doesn’t have a mayor or council — said people often overlook the benefits of living in a small town.
“I just love the camaraderie we have here,” she said. “It’s getting back to how it used to be when I was young, like, ‘Hey, neighbor, I’m going to fix your fence when you come fix my car.’ I love that. If my grandkids do something they’re not supposed to do down the street, we’ll know about it before they get back to the house.”
There are other benefits, too. Just look up at night. Without all the city lights, the sky is filled with a blanket of stars.
Those are the kinds of things Jasmyn Fletcher often thinks about.
“Sure, there are days when I ask myself why we live here, because it’s not always convenient,” she said. “The sunsets here are spectacular, though, and it’s a great place for our kids to grow up.”
