By Mike Donahue

Moapa Valley Progress

Nevada’s universities, UNLV and UNR, last Saturday held graduation ceremonies and a horde of new and excited potential employees was suddenly unleashed upon the job market.

They will soon be joined by veritable army of high school graduates, all of whom will be seeking and competing for work in one of the worst job markets in the nation in one of the poorest times in history to be looking for employment.

Nevada’s unemployment rate this month is 13.2 percent and with the huge influx of new workers it can only climb to new depressing heights, one of the few things that really looks bad as it goes up. How high up is anyone’s guess.

While the official unemployment rate is a good indicator of bad things are, it won’t count those who are underemployed; discriminate between full-time and part-time jobs; doing work for which they’re overqualified, and it won’t tell you how many people have become so discouraged they’ve given up job hunting. All this means it’s probably much worse that it looks.

As tough as things are, however, my advice to the many out there looking for work is: Don’t give up! Lightning can strike and often does even when we least expect it.Take the case of LaRue “Barney” Barnum.

Barney, a Moapa Valley fixture for decades, is 98 years old. He has lived in Southern Nevada for a good part of his life and spent a few early formative years in Arden, a small mining community next door to Las Vegas when that city was nothing but a whistle stop on the Union Pacific Railroad line.

Barney’s lived through some tough times in his life, including the Great Depression, but he’s always seemed to land on his feet and find work even when times were difficult.

In 1925 Barney was 12 and had just graduated from school in Arden. Like kids the world over there were things he wanted, needed, when school was out. His dad, however, was a miner earning just $5 a day to support a wife and three kids including Barney and there was little extra cash for the wants of a small boy.

Barney, who’s known his whole life you don’t get anything for nothing, decided he would have to find work. In 1925 there weren’t many jobs available in the middle of the Southwestern desert, especially for a youngster, so Barney did the only thing he could. One hot summer morning he hitched up his pants, cornered the mine superintendent and asked for work.

“A job?” the superintendent asked. “Barney, you’ve got to be at least 18 years old to work the mine. What kind of a job can I give you?”

Well, Barney said he didn’t know, but he was relentless. He refused to let the superintendent off the hook and day after day prodded and poked and nudged and pushed.

“Okay, okay,” the superintendent finally told Barney. “Let me think about it and I’ll get back to you.”

Well Barney’s persistence paid off and in less than two weeks the mine superintendent hired him at the amazing sum of 50 cents a day to feed and water the horses that plodded in and out of the mine hauling ore. While 50 cents a day would never make Barney a wealthy man … er, make that wealthy boy … at least it was something; it was work.

And despite the adage that insists lightning doesn’t strike twice in the same place, it wasn’t but a few weeks later that Barney had another job – astonishing but true.

In the desert in 1925 there was no such thing as refrigeration and food spoiled easily and quickly. Although Arden was almost in the middle of a hot, dry, dusty nowhere, it boasted a small diner. The gals who cooked there kept a big barrel outside the back door into which they threw spoiled scraps of meat that hadn’t been eaten.

Unfortunately, every cat for 20 miles around Arden seemed to think that barrel was a private dinner dish and there were literally herds of the wild critters swarming over it day and night. The cat problem got so bad the cooks were terrified of even going outside to throw things away. In those days ferocious feral felines were loaded with diseases including rabies.

“Barney, do you know how to trap cats?” one cook asked the young entrepreneur.

Well, Barney was a country boy and knew all about trapping rabbits and such. Although he hadn’t ever trapped cats, per se, he told the cook, “Sure, I know how to trap cats.”

In no time Barney, with help from dad, had a trap set up under the floor of the diner. He would prop an old wooden box up on stick to which he’d tied a long string. After putting a piece of spoiled meat under the box, he’d hide out behind the wood pile and wait for a cat to go after the bait. Then he’d pull the string, the box would fall and the cat would be trapped.

Barney quickly learned not to stick a bare hand under the box to retrieve the trapped cat. He also figured out how to humanely dispose of the cats and the rest is history. He was paid 10 cents-a-piece for each cat he disposed of and Barney was never without an income as long as he lived in Arden.

Finding work can be a daunting, unforgiving task for anyone, whether a new graduate, a not-so-new graduate or someone completely different. But if you can just hang on, just keep trying, you never know when something, anything, just might turn up.

“Rural Rants” is a column about rural living and the people who live here. It appears the first and third Wednesday of the month. Your comments and input are important and will be appreciated. Contact me via email at mouse@mvdsl.com.