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Desert Companion, 1289 S. Torrey Pines Drive, Spring Valley, NV (2025)

09/09/2025

Sustainability helped make Roberts’ career, but now he says it’s become the status quo. In a world of growing ecological crises, leading green architects such as Roberts are turning toward resiliency.

Architect Jeff Roberts spent years as a designer with blue-chip firm LGA, where he developed the Springs Preserve master plan and designed the Desert Living Center & Gardens, which helped put sustainable design on the map in Las Vegas.

In a world of growing ecological crises, leading green architects such as Roberts are turning toward resiliency, which considers not just a building’s energy performance, but also the way it nurtures its human occupants, protects the environment, and enhances its community’s social well-being.

Roberts is also leaning into his Indigenous heritage — he’s an enrolled citizen of the Cherokee Nation — delving deep into ITEK, or Indigenous Traditional Ecological Knowledge.

🔗 Read the full story: https://tinyurl.com/bdeb663n
✍️: T.R. Witcher

09/04/2025

The moment you walk into Seafood City, the scent of Jollibee chicken and the sound of Taglish chatter engulf your senses, taking you to Manila, Philippines.

But the supermarket on South Maryland Parkway is special compared to its chain sisters across the country. This one is the heart of Clark County’s newest official cultural district: Filipino Town.

The Las Vegas Valley is home to more than 200,000 Filipino people. The one-mile stretch of Maryland Parkway between Desert Inn and Flamingo has always been a hangout spot for their community. But thanks to 90-year-old Rozita Lee, now they can officially call it their own.

🔗 Read the full story here: https://knpr.org/desert-companion/2025-08-28/welcome-to-filipino-town
✍️: Maicyn Udani | Nevada Public Radio

08/28/2025

The Clark County School District does right by its students more than its reputation might suggest. Take its music education program: It has earned the Best Communities for Music Education designation for the 26th consecutive year, one of only six U.S. school districts to reach that milestone. It raises the question: Where do CCSD music teachers maintain their chops? For these three, it’s the stages they grace long after that final school bell.

🔗 Read the full story: https://tinyurl.com/344hrwz8
🧾 Pick up a copy of Desert Companion's Health Issue out now!
✍️ Mike Prevatt

08/26/2025

Megan Blattspieler has always admired artisanal fashion. One vintage dress, discovered during a thrifting trip in Palm Springs, was all it took for her to pursue her dream.

With a background in fashion merchandising, Blattspieler was inspired not only to re-create the dress, but to do it as ethically as possible. She didn’t want to conform to the fast fashion industry or exploit underpaid factory workers.

So, in 2019, she created Alissi (alissi.co) — a sustainable fashion business forged by the women of the desert. But not just the Mojave Desert. Sure, any Southern Nevadan can shop from Alissi. But the business wouldn’t exist without its partnership with the Saheli Women of India’s Thar Desert.

🔗 Read the full story: https://tinyurl.com/4pzrkbf5
✍️ Maicyn Udani

08/21/2025

Real estate deals are a big part of every American city’s story, shaping their economies and character. In Las Vegas, they have done more than influence its history: The city we know simply would not exist without them.

These are seven that made a difference in a variety of ways.

Read the story here: https://tinyurl.com/vkp4wzux or pick up a copy of Desert Companion's Health Issue!

08/15/2025

It’s that time of year when school starts and the seasonal programming calendars of many venues begin. Just don’t call it fall, because it sure as hell won’t feel like it until the next issue of Desert Companion. Still, there’s a ton on offer culturally, especially during September and October. Fortunately for you, we’ve fine-tuned our event filter in an anti-algorithmic fashion. Which is to say: We won’t predict what you will like — instead, we’re gonna tell you what you should like.

Check out the full guide here: https://tinyurl.com/usdehvjj or find a location to pick up a physical copy of Desert Companions health issue!

Writing - Mike Prevatt⁠
Illustration - Miguel Manich

08/13/2025

When was the last time you slowed down to listen to birdsong, touch a leaf, or gaze at clouds? Nature is not just a backdrop to our lives, but an active force, though we often forget that in our busyness. Recent research has shown that being outdoors can improve our well-being and decrease stress, depression, and anxiety. For those seeking a deeper connection with the outdoors, there’s the emerging field of nature therapy.

Sometimes called eco- or green therapy, these practices often supplement traditional modalities, such as cognitive-behavioral therapy or interpersonal therapy, with experiences in nature. That could involve anything from mindful birding to horseback riding, “forest bathing” (a Japanese practice in which you connect with your five senses in a woodland setting) to rock climbing, hiking, or creating art. (For example, I lead mindful birding walks for the Red Rock Audubon Society and am a member of the Mindful Birding Network, helping others de-stress and find presence by tuning in to the wisdom of birds.)

What differentiates nature therapy from just doing it yourself is the way guides help you go deeper into your inner world and better understand the outer landscape.

Read the full story here: https://tinyurl.com/4nsunjfy or pick up a copy of the 2025 Health Issue!

08/07/2025

As senior pastor at the Foundation Christian Center, DeWayne McCoy feeds his community spiritually and emotionally. As CEO and founder of The After Market, he also feeds them physically.

McCoy opened the co-existing grocery store and food pantry at 4337 Las Vegas Blvd. North, next to the church, in 2023. He aimed to address food insecurity issues in the northeastern Las Vegas neighborhood, one of the city’s five food deserts, which was abandoned in 2016 by a longstanding Walmart Supercenter.

McCoy says his model for a joint market and food pantry restores dignity to anyone seeking food assistance, whether they’re coming from the nearby Nellis Air Force Base or as far away as Pahrump.

“After watching people line up (at food pantries) when it’s 105 degrees outside, I started to try to think about a better way to do it,” says McCoy, whose food industry experience can be traced back to his first job at a Louisiana Piggly Wiggly.

“Food pantries ... tend to scream poverty,” McCoy says, noting that many communities are hurting financially. “Here, you don’t have to line up. You can come when it’s convenient for you.”

Read the full story here: https://tinyurl.com/mu9yne3b

08/05/2025

Between the sleek, yet classic spin that N**o Italiano takes on the Italian flavor, To the mediterranean spots you can bring even your pescatarian and plant-based besties to, Lorraine Blanco Moss looks to the chefs, dishes, and spots bringing the heat this summer! ⁠
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Find the full story and more here https://tinyurl.com/4ctyr7f9 or visit desertcompanion.com

Desert Companion magazine is published by Nevada Public Radio.

08/01/2025

⚕️The new Health issue of Desert Companion magazine is available now! ⚕️
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😷How is Las Vegas' healthcare system really doing, and what does it mean for you and your family? Desert Companion's Health Issue takes a deep dive into the state of healthcare while featuring our annual Top Doctors and Best Dentists list with over 400 highly respected local providers. Plus, discover how heart-centered business leaders are proving that doing good can be great for the bottom line.
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📖 Read the published stories here: https://tinyurl.com/3ukfzdyk or visit desertcompanion.com to view the digital magazine now. Pick up a copy at participating locations under the Contact tab.⁠

07/30/2025

Las Vegas Paiute Tribe member Fawn Douglas goes to Red Rock Canyon National Conservation Area to connect with her ancestors. As an artist, she fuels her creativity there.

On an April hike in Red Rock, Douglas carried water, to***co, and a knife, as she typically does. She uses to***co to give back to the land after foraging for medicine and tea. On the trail, she spotted native plants and herbs that she was looking for.

Today, federal protections, such as national parks or monument designations, keep some significant Indigenous homelands from being developed. Red Rock is one example in Southern Nevada.

Avi Kwa Ame National Monument is another. One that’s proposed for such protection is the East Las Vegas National Monument, located between Las Vegas and Lake Mead.

Yet under the current system, all it takes to undo decades of work to protect these sites is the action of one presidential administration. In a recent example, elected Republican officials proposed legislation to sell off millions of acres of public land across the West, including in Nevada.

That provision was taken out of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. But President Trump has made it clear that he wants to open public lands for oil drilling and mineral mining. Some of the sites his administration is targeting is land that Nevada tribes consider sacred.

Read or hear the full story here https://tinyurl.com/ysu63wb8 or visit knpr.org

07/22/2025

After a year of loss, anxiety, and unwelcome change, I’d love a spring getaway — as philosopher Jean Baudrillard wrote in his book America, “Driving is a spectacular form of amnesia.” Sounds like he’s advising me to take a road trip, right? To Flagstaff, maybe, then up along Colorado’s Western Slope and over to Salt Lake City before bending toward home. A long, rolling mindwipe through the healing beauty of the West would be good for me mentally, emotionally, even spiritually. Perhaps for you, too.

But what about ethically? After all, we’re a quarter of the way through the 21st century, and we should no longer operate as if blithely unaware of travel’s complicated, adverse impacts: the way fossil fuels worsen climate change; the eco-damage caused by tourists trampling our lovely places to find their selfies; the social stratifications reified by the privileges of leisure travel. Any trip I take is likely to exacerbate some of those problems, however slightly, and it’s time I reckon with that.

Now, I’m not saying I won’t take a trip anyway; like many Springsteen-Americans, I’m a sucker for our national mythology of the road. And travel can certainly dispel our longueurs and rekindle our passion for life. That’s a powerful truth. At the same time, a lot more ought to go into travel decisions nowadays than surfing discount lodging sites and curating your road-snack mix.

Read the full piece here: https://tinyurl.com/ycyrt8vt or visit knpr.org

Desert Companion

09/09/2025

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