Bob Whitby
Senior Writer
Contact: 868-4521 • Email
The veteran journalist has been working for newspapers since age 11 when he got his first job as a delivery executive for the San Jose Mercury News in Saratoga, Calif. He has put in stints writing for and editing papers in Texas, Wisconsin and Florida, most recently as editor of Orlando Weekly. He has a master’s degree in journalism from the University of South Florida, and once snuck into Cuba to chronicle the recovery of a stolen boat.
Recent Articles
Battling for the Brain
At the Ruvo Center, scientists are leveraging Las Vegas’ fight-capital status for a groundbreaking study
May 31st, 2012
By day, 25-year-old Nils Widlund is a presumably mild-mannered employee in the corporate sales support division of Nordea Bank in Stockholm. He crunches numbers on a computer, moves money around and wears nice clothes to work. Nights, weekends and on extended leave, he’s “Honeybadger” Widlund, the professional kickboxer who, just like the ferocious carnivore made infamous by the viral video, is “pretty badass and runs all over the place.”
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Brain Power for a Better Home
UNLV’s Solar Decathlon team is building a house that will leave you with energy to burn
May 31st, 2012
It’s 2 p.m. on a Friday, and about 20 students are gathered around large work tables in the Building Technologies Lab in UNLV’s School of Architecture, poring over technical drawings and 3-D models of a small house. The wall behind them is plastered with colorful scale drawings, elevations and cutaways showing the innards of the structure, but the students’ focus is on the table in front of them.
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Seven Days
A curated tour of this week in your city
May 31st, 2012
Tuesday, June 5: Three days wasn’t enough for the kids last year; this time, the Electric Daisy Carnival is a weeklong event. The actual spectacle out at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway is June 8-10, but clubs and pools around town start party rockin’ today.
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Seven Days
A curated tour of this week in your city
May 24th, 2012
Wednesday, May 30: In 1942, President Franklin Roosevelt created the Bracero program to bring guest workers from Mexico to the United States to alleviate a labor shortage in our fields and factories. It lasted 22 years, and enabled 2 million Mexicans to come here on short-term labor contracts. Learn more about this suddenly relevant bit of history through the Smithsonian’s traveling exhibit Bittersweet Harvest, at the Springs Preserve through July 29. SpringsPreserve.org.
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Reasoning
Five reasons North Las Vegans should worry …
May 24th, 2012
1. Your officials were expecting a budget deficit of “only” $15.5 million for fiscal year 2012-13. The actual figure is closer to $33 million.
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Seven Days
A curated tour of this week in your city
May 17th, 2012
Wednesday, May 23: While the Broadway staging of Mary Poppins “lacked the undiluted wonder” of The Lion King, according to The New York Times, the touring version of this show about the ultimate drop-in nanny is packed with sufficient whiz-bang theatrics and sage advice to justify the price of admission ($24 to $129). 7:30 p.m. at The Smith Center, TheSmithCenter.com.
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Seven Days
A curated tour of this week in your city
May 10th, 2012
The San Gennaro Feast started in New York City’s Little Italy in 1926 as a way to honor the patron saint of Naples, and evolved into an 11-day party celebrating all things Italian. Our version began Wednesday at the Rio and wraps up on Sunday, May 13, from 11 a.m. to 10 p.m., $8, SanGennaroFeast.com.
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The Man Who Photographs Produce
How a doctor-turned-artist discovered the wild and kaleidoscopic natural order of things
May 3rd, 2012
Dr. Robert Belliveau sits hunched over a small white-plastic cutting board, kitchen knife in hand. He’s slicing a fresh green pepper into quarter-inch-long strips, and the earthy smell momentarily turns his lab into a kitchen.
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Appropriating Downtown, With Fries
May 3rd, 2012
There’s a new McDonald’s on the Strip, a place where you can order your Premium Southwest Salad with Grilled Chicken, accompanied by a McCafe Iced Caramel Mocha, and eat in a test-marketed atmosphere of faux-graffiti murals and faux-brick walls, loft seating and chandeliers befitting of a sophisticated urbanite such as yourself. (Hey, sophisticated urbanite: Why are you eating at McDonald’s anyway? Eh, never mind.)
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Seven Days
A curated tour of this week in your city
May 3rd, 2012
Wednesday, May 9: Tree huggers unite! In celebration of Nevada’s Arbor Day, which was actually April 27, Las Vegas will plant an acacia tree at 10 a.m. in Majestic Park, 3997 Hualapai Way. (School kids will be there too, so the city moved the date to accommodate testing.) Little-known fact: The guy who started Arbor Day, J. Sterling Morton, was a journalist from Nebraska. See, we’re not all bad.
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