Nevada Press Association The best in Nevada journalism since 1924
NPA Member Spotlight features a series of monthly interviews with NPA members from the newsrooms and business operations of newspapers throughout the state. The interviews are conducted by Kim Palchikoff, an award-winning journalist who has written for the Las Vegas Sun, New York Times, International Herald Tribune, Los Angeles Times and other publications. You may know her from the mental health columns she distributes for free publication in NPA-member papers. This is her second interview.
Jeff Mullins, Editor, Elko Daily Free Press
Palchikoff: How did you get into journalism?
Mullins: I actually started out as a K-12 art teacher in Iowa but family circumstances brought me out to Elko in 1981. I went by the Elko Daily Free Press and they hired me off the street. I learned the business from the ground up.
What was it like back then?
Coming to Elko from Iowa was like landing on Mars. I had never seen such a stark landscape. Newspapers were just getting started with word processors and because of my experience with photography and from my days as an art teacher, I worked in part as a photographer and darkroom tech. I figured I developed at least 10,000 rolls of film by hand. This was before the digital age.
What was one of the biggest stories you covered?
The big news for many years was the formation of the Jarbidge Shovel Brigade in 2000, when hundreds of people gathered on July 4 to unblock a recreational access road that had been closed by the U.S. Forest Service after a flood. The dispute was over whether the county or the Forest Service had right of away. In Elko public land issues and the western lifestyle are big concerns. People here have a more independent attitude.
What was one of your favorite stories?
I remember taking photos at the first Cowboy Poetry Gathering, which went on to become very popular. The poets included local cowboy Waddie Mitchell, who later appeared on the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson.
Any funny stories?
When Jay Leno was hosting the Tonight Show, he had a segment where he read funny headlines from newspapers from around the country and one night he read one of my headlines. At the time an SUV full of male dancers had crashed into the rear of a semi, and the headline read, “Male dancers rear-end truck on I-80.”
How do you keep your readers’ attention?
We focus on what their interests are, such as outdoor recreation and the mining industry. Many important issues have come up, like access to Medicare services, the county’s high suicide rate and lack of good mental health care.
What do you do when you’re not in the newsroom?
I enjoy hiking and photography. Most recently I took hundreds of photos of Lamoille Canyon in the Ruby Mountains near Elko, before it caught fire late last summer and thousands of acres of trees were burned. Now I plan to take photos of it after the big fire for comparison.
