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From the Archives #28, October 2024

A couple of months ago, I described in this column the Las Vegas Region’s entry into the computer world with the purchase of a computer and a printer in April of 1995. The purchase was described as being primarily for the purpose of creating the monthly LVR Newsletter (“Sandscript”) and keeping track of the ever-expanding membership and mailing list. 

When I transferred to the Las Vegas Region from the Santa Barbara crowd in early 2012, there wasn’t a printed newsletter. In fact, there wasn’t much of a newsletter at all, just an occasional “Blast,” which was an e-mailed notice to the members, mostly having to do with the Spring Mountain DEs.

So what happened? We had a computer. Why wasn’t there a published and mailed out Newsletter?

To investigate, I looked through the boxes of the old Sandscripts, only to discover that the last published Las Vegas Region Newsletter was in December 1997. (If anyone has a newer one, please let me know at philreese356@gmail.com.)

The last printed newsletter looked pretty good. The cover was a full-color photo of a 911 that belonged to Deb Bieniek (a past-President of the LVR) posed in front of a jet fighter at Nellis AFB. The whole 16-page magazine was 8 ½ by 11” glossy paper. The back page was full-color ad for Carl’s Place (Now “900 Series Motorsports” in the same location).

In fact, that last issue had a total of twelve advertisements, ranging in size from the two full-pagers to five half and quarter page ones, to five eighth-pagers. The ads constituted about 32% of the last issue not counting the front cover.

Page 3 listed the Region officers, the Table of Contents, the notice of the regular Region meetings, and a PCA Zone 8 logo.

The two actual articles in the issue were a report on the open-road race that I described in the August 2024 Archives (in 1997 the LVR won the club competition for the 4^th straight time), and a long (3 ½ pgs) technical article on rehabbing and upgrading the suspension of a 1969 911T by one Dr. Robert Mohan.

There wasn’t a clue that this issue was to be the last printed and mailed out. But I concluded from seeing the obvious amount of work that went into the December 1997 issue, and knowing the effort of getting advertisers and getting them to pay, that the Region board chose to go the e-mail “Blast” format for distributing information.

So, since the end of 1997 the LVR’s Newsletter has been electronically created and distributed by e-mail. Such is progress.

If someone has the April 2015 issue, please forward it to me at the email address given above. Thanks.