Paul Szydelko
Lead Copy Editor
Contact: 868-4548 • Email
A Southern Nevada resident since he graduated from the University of Oregon with a degree in journalism in 1986, Szydelko has been the lead copy editor at Vegas Seven since its inception. The former sports reporter, news reporter and managing editor of the Henderson Home News worked on the copy desk of the Las Vegas Sun when it was an afternoon daily and sampled the Strip’s many tourist attractions as associate editor and senior editor of Las Vegas Magazine. The San Diego native lives in Henderson with his wife and two daughters.
Recent Articles
Splashdown Comes in 2013
May 10th, 2012
From floating lazily on a raft to hurtling down steep slides to a splash landing, the magic of Wet ’n Wild—once the nation’s seventh most popular water park—shaped the summer memories of a Las Vegas generation. Then the water was drained in 2004 to make room for an apparently invisible megaresort, and rec centers have had to suffice ever since. By 2013, though, the good times could be back in two new parks.
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Dr. Steve Lampinen
Family Medicine
February 23rd, 2012
A good doctor always … listens to his patients. Patients tell their story. They know what’s going on with them. If you listen to what they have to say and ask the right questions, 98 percent of the time you will have the answer in front of you. It’s a lost art.
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Jeff Gordon
The Caring Man
January 26th, 2012
Thrusting his fist into the breeze while riding his Harley-Davidson, Jeff Gordon has just rounded a hazardous turn on a narrow road in the mountains of Utah. Two years earlier, he collided here with a truck pulling a trailer full of firewood. The accident nearly took his lower left leg—and his life. Now he is elated to have conquered the turn, but he knows life sometimes has even more treacherous challenges—ones that may never be beaten, only endured.
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Amy Tarkanian
Wife of the Party
January 26th, 2012
For more than seven tumultuous months as chair of the Nevada Republican Party, Amy Tarkanian not only survived but appeared to flourish. In the playground of competing interests, strong-willed up-and-comers, disengaged onlookers and broken infrastructure, she fought bullies over the scheduling of the presidential caucus and acted as the fulcrum in balancing Tea Party demands and the need for electable candidates.
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Alyse Williams, 16
Political and social activist
November 17th, 2011
When a presidential candidate visits your home to meet his precinct captains, it might make a vague impression on an ordinary 12-year-old girl. When it is Barack Obama and the girl is energetic, ambitious and community-minded, a passion for public service is ignited. “I felt like I was the only person in the room, although the house was filled with so many people it was nearly impossible to move,” says Alyse, who was inspired that July day in 2007 to help found Nevadans 4 Obama, whose 300 members helped raise more than $178,000 through house parties and online efforts.
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People
Best School Principal
July 28th, 2011
Halle Hewetson Elementary School was languishing as one of Nevada’s lowest performers in 2005. Fewer than 25 percent of the students performed adequately in math, and only 15 percent performed adequately in English and language arts. That autumn, Lucille Keaton took over as principal. Today those numbers stand at 90 and 79 percent, respectively.
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Are You Ready for Some Baseball?
The Boys of Summer have returned to Arizona, and the drive just got easier
March 3rd, 2011
On calm, warm mornings, when the grass is still glazed with dew, the players gather. They loosen the muscles, take some grounders and practice their swings. They listen to coaches, share stories with each other, chat with fans and, after a long winter, begin to embrace the rhythm of baseball. Before they become the Boys of Summer, there is spring training, when all teams have hope to win it all. If you share the passion for this annual ritual, pack a bag and take the 4-5-hour drive from Las Vegas, made easier this year with the opening of the Hoover Dam bypass.
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The Snot Doc
Jim Christensen’s expertise and laid-back bedside manner make him the go-to guy for allergy sufferers
February 24th, 2011
So a nasal wash is effective for a lot of people? “OMG, yeah!” Dr. Jim Christensen exclaims. “You show people how to do that and they go, ‘Whew, you’ve changed my life.’” Quick with a joke, armed with a gregarious personality, the doctor whose e-mail handle is “snotdoc” was by far the leading vote-getter among allergists in the survey. Christensen suspects his longevity and willingness to go to hospitals for consults may be reasons for the wide recognition among colleagues.
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Psyched Up
Dodge A. Slagle gets to the bottom of Las Vegans’ problems, one life story at a time
February 24th, 2011
Perhaps it’s expected when you talk to a psychiatrist, but the questions are thoughtfully considered, the responses carefully crafted, the voice soothing, the pace languid. And the common-sense advice he imparts when prompted would help anyone—the harried executive, the out-of-work welder, the anxious teen or the motorist who’s just been cut off in traffic. “Be respectful of others, and try not to take everything personally. Many of the problems that people have are related to treating something as a personal insult when it really wasn’t,” says Dr. Dodge A. Slagle, who has been treating patients in the Valley since he was assigned to Nellis Air Force Base in 1989.
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Hong Sun & Hui Zhang
The Cancer Trailblazers
January 27th, 2011
Hiking the trails of Red Rock National Conservation Area affords Hong Sun and Hui Zhang the cherished freedom to roam and commune with nature. But it’s in the cluttered laboratory on the third floor of the Nevada Cancer Institute (NVCI) that the husband-and-wife team truly blazes trails and connects with nature. “You feel you are closer to nature when you’ve discovered something, when you’ve unraveled some secret of nature,” says Sun, who along with Zhang has devoted her career to cancer research.
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