Stories by Jack Sheehan

• Jack Sheehan on the rise of glass ceiling-shatterer Cindy Kiser Murphey, head of New York-New York

  May 13, 2008 (2 a.m.)

  By Jack Sheehan

  It’s tempting to report that a huge twister swept through Kansas one day, and lifted young Cindy Kiser from her bed and onto the Yellow Brick Road leading to the presidency of New York-New York. But that's too easy.

  

• Our concentration of resorts is cited as economic model

  May 2, 2008 (2 a.m.)

  By Joe Schoenmann , Jack Sheehan

  Las Vegas’ success in becoming a nexus of entertainment and gambling is a model that American cities would do well to emulate in other businesses, a new Brookings Institution report concludes.

• ‘Idol’ an oasis of clean amid a cesspool on TV

  Apr 27, 2008 (2 a.m.)

  By Jack Sheehan

  This is not an easy admission to make, but I’ll do it anyway. The one can’t-miss, required-viewing television show in the Sheehan household every week is “American Idol.”

• Why Las Vegans can be a tad defensive about how others see their city

  Apr 13, 2008 (2 a.m.)

  By Jack Sheehan

  We Las Vegans need to keep a thick skin, and not just because the desert sun will bake us harder than an armadillo shell if we get too much exposure to it.

• 1968: So much hope, so much tragedy

  Mar 31, 2008 (2 a.m.)

  By Jack Sheehan

  Just as one break in the snow can cause an avalanche, so one twisted mind can alter the course of a generation.

• After 21 years on hold, she’s ready for life

  Mar 17, 2008 (2 a.m.)

  By Jack Sheehan

  I expected to meet a hardened woman, her face a steely mask of contempt and resignation for a life that has dealt her one cruel blow after another. But somehow, some way, Sandy Shaw has come through her nightmares unscathed on the surface.

• Old Vegas drew dreamers, toughs

  Feb 17, 2008 (2 a.m.)

  By Jack Sheehan

  The stereotypical image of Las Vegas in the 1960s and ’70s was that of a catchall community of second-chancers, bail-jumpers, pipe-dreamers, entrepreneurs looking for open spaces, divorcees looking for a quick nip and tuck, saints and sinners, and everything in between.

• Jack Sheehan implores rat-race-weary Las Vegans to jump in their cars and make the short trip to scenic Mount Charleston, now in prime season

  Feb 3, 2008 (2 a.m.)

  By Jack Sheehan

  The scenic splendor on the northwest horizon of our city always makes the first paragraph when patrons of Southern Nevada argue that Las Vegas is far more than just a flat slab of caliche in the middle of nowhereville.

  

• Jack Sheehan names names as the FBI tries to solve the mystery of D.B. Cooper

  Jan 22, 2008 (2 a.m.)

  By Jack Sheehan

  Special Agent Larry Carr in Seattle is leading the investigation of the legendary and oft-romanticized D.B. Cooper skyjacking of a Northwest Airlines 727 jet in November 1971 in hope of solving one of the most intriguing mysteries of the past century.

• Jack Sheehan talks to two women who left the sex trade and now target it with Christianity

  Dec 23, 2007 (6:54 a.m.)

  By Jack Sheehan

  These two women have come full circle in their lives through troubled youths, abuse, alcohol and drug issues, and even the dark alley of top-dollar prostitution, to a place where today both live on modest incomes and have devoted their lives to telling people that Jesus loves them.

• Don’t let her good looks fool you

  Sep 1, 2007 (10 p.m.)

  By Jack Sheehan

  Sitting in a restaurant booth across from mixed martial arts fighter Gina Carano, a drop-dead gorgeous brunette who could if she chose drop me dead with a quick jab to the larynx, I'm taken back 30 years to an interview I did with her father, Glenn.

  

• Jack Sheehan on the folly of asserting absolute certainty in an uncertain world

  May 13, 2007 (7:04 a.m.)

  By Jack Sheehan

  Regarding our own wonderful city, here are some things that this oft-humbled and wizened observer would consider to be Highly Likely.

• Jack Sheehan learns that 'junk in the trunk' has taken on a completely different meaning

  Jan 14, 2007 (7:16 a.m.)

  By Jack Sheehan

  It's no secret that kids everywhere in America grow up much faster today than they did 30 years ago. With MTV, the Internet, and explicit magazines blanketing the shelves and checkout stands of every grocery and convenience store, if a father waits until his kids have hit their teen years to give the birds-and-the-bees talk, chances are he's way too late.

• Columnist Jack Sheehan: How one smart girl grasped the difference between celebrities and heroes

  Jan 29, 2006 (7:48 a.m.)

  The other day my 7-year-old daughter, Lily, asked me a homework question: What is the difference between a celebrity and a hero/ heroine?

• Columnist Jack Sheehan: On the gradual disappearance of the statuesque icons, symbols of Vegas

  Jan 15, 2006 (9:44 a.m.)

  Last October, for the 15th time, I interviewed the champion of our annual PGA Tour event for the crowd surrounding the 18th green at the Tournament Players Club at Summerlin. This past year it happened to be a 41-year-old rookie from Texas named Wes Short Jr.

• Columnist Jack Sheehan: On a city that never stops providing inspiration, even after 30 years of writing about its bizarre characters

  Jan 1, 2006 (8:40 a.m.)

  That was the last time I wrote a column for the Las Vegas Sun. It was part of a twice-a-week stint that ran for two years, until I decided to try the Hollywood Shuffle and locked myself in my room to pen screenplays. While I did manage to peddle three different scripts to Glitter City studios, please don't ask me to name the films. That's because none of them got made.

• Columnist Jack Sheehan: If it rhymes, is it a poem?

  Dec 2, 1997 (5:22 a.m.)

  I was interested in the project until I learned that I would be expected to follow the cowboys from town to town, recording their misadventures, but without the cushion of an expense account. In other words, I would be expected to do all the work on my own nickel in hopes that the book made money. The offer was sort of like rodeo itself, in that nothing was guaranteed except the joy of the experience. I took a pass, but I did so with a certain amount of regret, because the cowboys I've known in my life have been a colorful and delightful lot, and the experience would have provided a peek at a world I've always been curious about. I mean, what little kid who grows up in the western United States doesn't at some point dream of becoming a cowboy?