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The director of the Las Vegas News Bureau sits in her office with paper, contact sheets, photos and files stacked everywhere--on the desk, the coffee table, filing cabinet, the floor.
She answers the phone:
"Yeah, don't know what paper they're with, but I'll find out."
She's tipped back in her chair, phone snug against her ear.
She quickly scribbles a note and sticks it on her desk.
This woman sounds more like a news reporter than the director of a city agency that hands out press kits.
There's a good reason for that.
It's because the director's name is Myram Borders.
And she spent 25 years as a United Press International wire reporter, covering Nevada news.
She covered the big stories--like the Howard Hughes Mormon will trial and Frank Sinatra's bout with the gaming commission.
She watched Las Vegas grow from a small town with mob ties to a growing city with a corparate image.
And, she ended up on the other end of her profession--as a public relations person.
She says it isn't tough to sell Las Vegas to the world's journalists.
"Las Vegas just blows their minds," Borders says.
"You don't even have to think about a new angle when you're writing about this town," she says. Every two months another one comes out of the sand."
What makes people so interested in this city?
"It isn't real," Borders says. "It's a fantasy."
She says people will always come here to escape the real world.
"Las Vegas is like the little top on the world's pressure cooker. It lets the steam out before everything blows. It's an emotional outlet."
Borders believes that Las Vegas will be attracting even more attention in the future.
Gaming in other states will only increase the world's appetite to gamble, she says.
"Sure, they have casinos in other states. But nobody on the face of this earth has been able to duplicate Las Vegas. It'll be a long time before they catch up."
She says people don't think gambling is much of a sin anymore.
"They're gambling in the Bible Belt now, with riverboats running up and down the Mississippi."
Borders believes this new perception of gambling will only...