Herb Jaffe

It has been stop and go for 12 years for advocates of a Northwest Campus of College of Southern Nevada. And the way things are going, it could take longer than anyone in the know is willing to say before funding from the state becomes available to allow the first construction shovel into the ground.

There’s a somber ceremony that’s performed twice a year by the Sun City Summerlin Security Patrol. It’s called flag retirement day, and it’s a highly respectful occasion, as you might expect. Equally important, it must be done in a proper manner when any flag of the United States becomes weather-beaten or otherwise tattered.

Triple A baseball in the very heart of Summerlin? It was only a fantasy, even after discussions about how a stadium might fit in were voiced six years ago by those enterprising folks at The Howard Hughes Corp.

This is how a funny incident resulted in close friendship. It’s how two guys named Duke Sims and Bob Bailey came together as minor league baseball players in 1962. And 55 years later, the only thing that has changed is that instead of playing baseball, they play golf together several times a month.

Back in the 1990s, Las Vegas home developers borrowed a phrase from “Field of Dreams,” one of the all-time great baseball movies, and as a result they sold lots of houses.

There’s this baseball team of 12-year-olds from Las Vegas who went to Cooperstown, New York, for eight days last month to compete in a tournament. There were 103 other baseball teams participating, similarly composed of 12-year-olds from all over the U.S. and Canada.

Groundbreaking ceremonies have become routine in Summerlin, thanks to the continuing economic uptick. Although some groundbreakings are for extraordinary developments, both in size and in value, few bring out the most notable public official in the state.