Transcript of interview with Kenneth F. Johann by Gloria Banks, March 1, 1980

UNLV University Libraries Kenneth Johann i An Interview with Kenneth Johann An Oral History Conducted by Gloria Banks Ralph Roske Oral History Project on Early Las Vegas Special Collections and Archives Oral History Research Center University Libraries University of Nevada, Las Vegas UNLV University Libraries Kenneth Johann ii © Ralph Roske Oral History Project on Early Las Vegas University of Nevada, Las Vegas, 2019 UNLV University Libraries Kenneth Johann iii The Oral History Research Center (OHRC) was formally established by the Board of Regents of the University of Nevada System in September 2003 as an entity of the UNLV University Libraries’ Special Collections Division. The OHRC conducts oral interviews with individuals who are selected for their ability to provide first-hand observations on a variety of historical topics in Las Vegas and Southern Nevada. The OHRC is also home to legacy oral history interviews conducted prior to its establishment including many conducted by UNLV History Professor Ralph Roske and his students. This legacy interview transcript received minimal editing, such as the elimination of fragments, false starts, and repetitions in order to enhance the reader's understanding of the material. All measures have been taken to preserve the style and language of the narrator. The interviewee/narrator was not involved in the editing process. UNLV University Libraries Kenneth Johann iv Abstract On March 1, 1980, Gloria Banks interviewed her business acquaintance, Kenneth F. Johann (born 1924 in New York City) about his work life in Las Vegas, Nevada. The two discuss the origins of Johann’s business and early land prices in Southern Nevada. Johann explains the history of his investments as well as how land development progressed in Las Vegas from the 1950s and onward. UNLV University Libraries Kenneth Johann 1 The narrator is Mr. Kenneth Johann, realtor and land developer. The date is March 1st, 1980. The place is 1604 Maryland Parkway, Las Vegas, Nevada. The collector is Gloria Banks, 1600 University Avenue, Las Vegas. The project is Local History, Number 11: Oral Interview, for the University of Nevada at Las Vegas. This is an interview with a long term resident and businessman. Good afternoon Mr. Johann, could you tell us a little bit about how you began in business here in Las Vegas? Well, I arrived in Las Vegas around November of 1948 from New York City, where I was born. At the time I was twenty-four years old, and didn’t know really what I was going to do. I arrived with a hundred dollars in my pocket. My first residence was in Henderson, Nevada, where I worked for a few days at the plant there, negotiated a lease and operated a little candy stand next to the Henderson Theatre. I also was there, I guess, their good humor boy, good humor man to the children of Henderson. While operating this candy-stand, I also became a night auditor of the Apache Hotel Downtown, which is now the Horseshoe Club. And one evening, I was successful in winning a Bingo black-out game which gave me twenty-one hundred dollars, I guess, which was my stepping stone. I purchased at half-interest in the restaurant in Nellis, and my first house was—I continued on with this for about two years, returning to New York City for a short period of time, knowing that I loved Nevada, returning in 1952, purchased a (unintelligible) keeping that for a while, and while owning that and making deliveries to the various hotels, worked also as a room service waiter, and studied real-estate. In 1954, I passed my real-estate examination and became a real-estate salesman and realtor. During the next twenty-six years of my life, I spent in real-estate business and development and contributed some of my time to being in public office. I’ve seen and UNLV University Libraries Kenneth Johann 2 experienced real-estate in Las Vegas, going from you might say, zero to an unknown factor. Some of the better remembered transactions reminiscing back, in the middle fifties or late fifties, I was successful in selling the corner two hundred and twenty feet on the Strip with a thousand feet of depth on Flamingo Road for the grand total sum of a hundred seventy-five thousand dollars. And the purchaser had the option to purchase the next five hundred feet on Flamingo Road with a depth of two-hundred twenty feet, for twenty thousand dollars. That’s eighteen cents a foot, and the Strip piece figured out to be around eighty-cents a foot, for a grand total of a hundred and ninety-five thousand dollars, and today, I would have to say that land is worth somewhere around six million dollars, or twenty dollars a foot. Likewise, the adjoining property which I sold consisted of three hundred front feet, where the Galaxy Motel is today, with a depth of fifteen hundred feet, and that was sold, I believe around three-hundred fifty thousand for a total square footage of four-hundred fifty thousand dollars—I mean, four-hundred fifty thousand square feet, for fifty, some odd, seventy odd cents a square foot. And today, that has to be worth probably in the neighborhood of seven-million dollars. I’m sure a lot of people who are old-timers you might say, can, I understand, the Flamingo, a hundred sixty acres there, was owned to a purchase of twenty-five cents an acre. During the years I was instrumental through association with putting in Twain, which you probably know, runs between Paradise and Maryland Parkway. When the Clark County Planning Department requested an eighty-foot street through there, the developer and myself thought that they were crazy, that they can put an eighty-foot street through the middle of the desert going no place was kind of ridiculous, but I guess today, if you had a hundred fifty-foot street, it would be just as crowded. Also, Harmon Road, from the Strip to Paradise Road, when I sold the property were the Tahiti is today, they were required to put in Harmon Road. UNLV University Libraries Kenneth Johann 3 During the years, being in the business, I developed numerous properties in town. I was appointed to the Clark County Housing Authority where I remained for a while and was Chairman of the Board there. I was also on the Clark County Planning Commission for a couple of years. And I felt good about that, I guess because I was instrumental in programming or posturing, I guess you would say, part of the community. Of course, all the years were not all glory years for Las Vegas. We’ve had ups and downs, especially in 1963. Las Vegas was in a very deep depression, I guess the whole country was from overbuilding and I feel that at that particular time, when Howard Hughes entered the Las Vegas scene, I believe it was ’64, that this man was instrumental in taking Las Vegas out of the slump, putting Las Vegas out on the map, and giving Las Vegas the integrity that it needed to make it a major resort city, convention city, retirement city, as we are known today. By him buying many of the hotels that some were in trouble, put the town back in a good money position. Put the—people started buying houses that the savings alone owned, were construction industry would back into the works again. Just the whole city seemed to take a different outlook and started anew again. Of course, then came the corporate structures entering into the gaming industry, which again, broadened perspective, as far as the construction of new hotels and bringing in large sums of money. And through corporate structures to add—make additions, like the Hilton Hotel and Caesar’s World, and MGM and big hotels of this nature, were just individuals who weren’t capable of building these monuments so to speak. With Mr. Hughes coming in the way he did, of course, he brought in cash, as probably everybody knows, however, you have to stop and realize that when you pump multi-million dollars in cash into the city, or into the hands of its citizens, the citizens that save this, naturally in turn, re-invest it, or they in turn then build apartment complexes and houses and again, it just UNLV University Libraries Kenneth Johann 4 solidified. It made the town. Of course, talking about Mr. Hughes, you have to reminisce a little bit—when I was a room service waiter at the Flamingo, as I previously mentioned, I used to wait on Mr. Hughes. He took the entire one-floor of the building as his accommodations, not knowing that that man would one day come to Las Vegas and buy out most of the land on the Strip and most of the hotels. He owns, as everybody knows, probably, the Fremont—not the Fremont, but the Frontier, the Castaways, and all the land between that. The Sands and the Desert Inn and most of the land in between that. All of the land across from the Sahara Hotel and adjacent to the Sahara Hotel. Land behind the Sands and coming on the Flamingo, and Paradise, and Twain, but with all of the considerable buildings, and buying his land for cash, like I mentioned, it just booted the entire economy of Las Vegas. Years ago, of course, when they were owned by individuals—most of the hotels and casinos, everything was kind of a give-away. The casinos paid for the rooms, basically the casinos paid for the restaurants, or was responsible for—but today, with the corporate structures and computers and what have you, every department has to stand on its own two feet. The hotel’s ‘gotta make money, the restaurants have to make money; casinos of course help subsidize them to a certain extent, but it’s a different ball game. Years ago, operated a casino with two-hundred rooms, today you know, you have to have two thousand rooms, and you ‘gotta have a big convention hall. And of course, speaking of convention halls, the one convention authority that we have today, I think you have to complement the county fathers and their foresight in starting something as they did years ago with the convention facilities and continually expanding and bonds, and committing the county, and being successful as it is and even reading in the paper today, I noticed where they’re going to expand again on the convention facilities, and they’re going to have a convention and sports arena Downtown, a twenty-two million dollar establishment Downtown, so that the Downtown can keep abreast of UNLV University Libraries Kenneth Johann 5 the convention business. We have a beautiful stadium on the east side of town, so Las Vegas is no more a small city. We’re on the map—I travel quite a bit, and there isn’t a day that goes by, doesn’t matter if I’m in Europe, in South America, or wherever, somewhere in the distance, you’ll always hear the word Las Vegas. It seems to be like a magnet to people; they want to come here, or people have been here, they talk about the shows. I feel like Las Vegas is probably the greatest dollar-value of entertainment or food for food, or for live entertainment that you’ll find any place in the world. Where can you go and have a forty-nine cent breakfast or a dollar fifty-nine cent lunch, or a two dollar and fifty cent dinner? You pay that for a drink or a cup of coffee in other parts of the world today. You can see all the finest entertainment in the world without—so I can say that Las Vegas can only go one way, and that’s forward. The population today, I would estimate to be somewhere around half a million people in the County. Which at the time, when I arrived, they never had that many in the state. I came here in 1948, the population was I believe, around twenty-five thousand people, and we had I think one high school, you can look at the phonebook, was probably fifty pages or something like that, if it was that many. (Laughs) People used to go out of the state, to California if they wanted to get a physical check-up or there weren’t that many attorneys in town, or dentists, it’s just, people are coming from all over the world here. And what makes it interesting about real-estate in Las Vegas, or in Clark County, or Nevada, is the fact that people from all over the world want to buy a piece of property in Las Vegas. It’s not like some towns, (unintelligible) some place where the real estate is sold to residents of that particular city. In Las Vegas, people like I say, from all over the world, want to buy a piece of property. Property that’s held here, or that is held by individuals who are probably substantial enough to hold a property, if they voted with the idea UNLV University Libraries Kenneth Johann 6 of—not necessarily speculating with it, you find that there aren’t as many foreclosures here on vacant land as probably there are at around other places. It was very difficult of course, years ago, to attract industry to Nevada because everybody thought with the gambling industry that people that lived here would constantly gamble. The big industry would have problems with their employees with gambling. They would, they couldn’t attract the families here because they would have problems with the drinking and the gambling and the night life and what have you. So it was difficult to get industry here. Of course, as the years went on, and as we’ve grown, and as larger corporations have come into Nevada and the hotel industry, it’s changed the image whereby now we’re attracting larger plants like, Levi Strauss and Penney’s and Buster Brown, and bigger industries or—in like Henderson as an example, filing has started to take hold in the industrial area. When I first moved here, as I mentioned, in the beginning, I think there was probably, seventeen thousand people I think or something like that there. And Henderson was supposed to have been the place where it was going to boom. I remember an estate that my brother-in-law made to me one time, and that’s around 1949, ’50 to—“Someday, I’m going to see you,” or “Someday you’ll see where Henderson and Las Vegas will join.” (Laughs) I laughed, and I thought he was crazy, but I guess he wasn’t so crazy because you can see where it runs in together now. I believe North Las Vegas started coming into its own too when Howard Hughes purchased the airport there, plus numerous blocks of land adjoining the airport. They have their own golf course now and city parks and population in certain exposures. They’re an (unintelligible) industry to North Las Vegas, and it’s just the entire county seems just to be exploding, and I don’t know if I mentioned it before, I think the projection for the population 2000, is somewhere around one million people. UNLV University Libraries Kenneth Johann 7 Mr. Johann, could you tell us what the town was like when you got here? Before the Boulder Highway, at all? Well, I didn’t get here before Boulder Highway, but I got here when the LA Highway was only two-lanes and they were pretty narrow. Going over to Baker Grave, or going back from California, if you were coming back, sometimes would take you as long as two hours to get over to Baker Grave because the traffic was backed up and the big trucks could only go a few miles an hour, and you couldn’t pass because the traffic coming the opposite way. So it was quite hectic before the freeway actually got here. It was a dream and I guess it became a reality, but when I got here, the hotels, well the Flamingo Hotel, is now where what the Sahara was called a Bingo, a Bingo Room, or a Bingo—it wasn’t even a hotel, it was just a Bingo palace or a Bingo parlor. The Thunderbird, and the El Rancho—it was about, not counting what was Downtown, was about the only thing on the Strip. Of course, as the years progressed, the Sands, and the Desert Inn, Stardust, and we had the old racetrack here, which is finally, you might say demolished, and became where the Hilton Hotel is now. I remember, you know, you talk about real-estate, I remember there was three hundred and twenty acres which is now where the Stardust golf course is and that was for sale for five hundred dollars an acre. It was difficult, couldn’t even sell it then for that amount of money. Boulder Highway, never did really develop too rapidly over the years, except that it’s coming into its own today, and it’ll probably eventually be like a second Strip. You take the people coming in from Los Angeles and they know the Strip as it is known today, and the people come in from the Arizona area, or well no, the Boulder Highway probably is their Strip—even though it’s not as segregated as such. But with the building of the Sands Town out there, and of course, the Showboat was the number one for that area, and then Sands Town, and what it is—the Nevada Club. There are many other UNLV University Libraries Kenneth Johann 8 proposed or planned hotels along Boulder Highway—Holiday Inn is supposed to build, Ramada Inn is supposed to build. There’s a planned big shopping center out in the Tropicana area, so we also have gaming on the Westside of the freeway, which we never had years ago. We have now the Bingo Palace by Sahara Boulevard. We have Motel 8, we have the (Unintelligible), so you have—the gaming industry is starting to spread out the same as the basically the town. You can’t concentrate all of your industry into one place, but even though Howard Hughes, I feel was a man, or who his company was instrumental in taking the city—or putting the city on the map, he’s also detrimental as far as controlling large blocks of land on the Strip. Not allowing the passage of this land into other hands so that development could occur. So as good as he was, maybe he wasn’t as good as he should’ve been. Lake Mead of course is a recreational area, I should say around Lake Mead of course is continually expanding with different marinas. Over the years we had the Cobalt Bay Marina, and there’s two other marinas, there’s trailer parks being built down there. Boulder city, since the government gave it back to the general publics, so to speak, is now also beginning to explode population wise. They still don’t have gambling out there, I guess it’s probably one of the only communities in Nevada where you won’t find a slot machine. They’re attracting a lot of the retired people that like to have the desert surrounding and away from gambling. McCarran International Airport certainly is a, I feel, a compliment to the area. I think the commissioners are doing a fine job with their expansion programming. I think the deregulation of airline industry is another plus factor for Las Vegas, bringing more and more tourists to the airplane—or they’re more available for, to come to Las Vegas. We got airlines like PSA and Air in California now flying to Las Vegas from California where they never did before. And it’s just opened up a whole new sector so to speak in the industry. I can’t just—I keep repeating myself UNLV University Libraries Kenneth Johann 9 because it’s I think Las Vegas is just going to continue to boom and as automation becomes more and more, and recreation, or where people are going to be working four days a week instead of five, with three days off. Long weekends, it just makes Las Vegas the entertainment capital of the world. (Tape one ends) (Audio begins mid-conversation)—that you noticed? Well, actually the growth pattern was basically south from the city and to the west. The reasoning that I have for such a growth pattern, was that as far as west (unintelligible), there was only two underpasses—actually they were overpasses there for a while. But the two overpasses of the railroad was Bonanza Road and Charleston Boulevard. The hospital was on, as it where it is today, on the corner of Charleston and Rancho Road. So the logical access or the best access across was Charleston Boulevard, so that kind of gave the leg to the development of the West Charleston area, was Charleston Boulevard. From there came Evergreen, and (Unintelligible) and so on, going north. And the whole expansion went out that way, Westley was one of the first subdivisions there and then Hyde Park, and the Cliff May, and then Becker game into the picture, and scroll homes, and completed exploded. The whole western section of town was wood house and commercial developments. To the south, as we know today, Paradise Valley, but to the South, it expanded because of the hotels being in the southerly portion of the county or the city. The town, if you want to call it that. Desert Inn built a golf course and built houses around that, and Tropicana built the golf course and you had houses around that, and Stardust built a golf course and put houses around that, so some finer houses were built out there. And of course, like satellites, people started building housing tracts and the southern area of the town exploded that way. And then supply UNLV University Libraries Kenneth Johann 10 and demand, you have to go further east, so now we’re over help to build the highway on the other side of Boulder Highway. And as I mentioned before, now we’re touching Henderson, so the reason it didn’t go to the east I think is because east portion of the town is lower, and is more of a drainage area where we have rains, where most, or a lot of the water drains in that direction. Before the town was really built, it used to get most of the water down there. So until the western section and the middle section were built up, the east had to stand idle. And to the north of course, the city was kind of blocked because North Las Vegas comes up practically to our northerly doorstep of the town. So I think that’s pretty much all the progress. Mr. Johann, what do you feel were the main problems of expansion that might be peculiar to Las Vegas? Well, like any growing city, the problems of course are utility problems: keeping up with sewer lines, and proper water lines, and of course you’ve got the private entities of the gas company, and the power companies, and so it’s been planning. Of course, you need to get the widening of the streets and then all of this costs money. It’s like a snowball—you can only do so much at a time when more people move in then you anticipate, you know, you project certain amount of population growth, and when that increases beyond a point, then everybody, telephone people, they all have problems. It isn’t something that you can foresee it—it’s just because of the population explosion. It’s like any place else, it’s like a balloon, if you put too much air in, it’s got to explode. So that’s the problems we’ve had here, and I think they all did a great job. Mr. Johann, could you comment on some of the social trends, the changes that you’ve noticed since 1950? Yes, I guess I—oh, the Helldorado Days, they were quite a thing back in the—’40, ’48 when I first got here. Everybody participated in Helldorado, and everybody grew beards and everybody UNLV University Libraries Kenneth Johann 11 went western and Cashman Field, of course that’s where the rodeos used to be held, and hotels they all used to compete. I mean, everyone had to have a better float than the next. You know, the showgirls, they were of course, there were shows then when every hotel had a course line. So of course, all the floats were all decked out with the chorus girls and the different bands and after today—it’s just the enthusiasm isn’t there for that. We’ve kind of gotten out of the western feeling of the city. Years ago, when the individuals used to own the hotels, they you know, people would go and you would get comped, and everybody knew everybody. It’s getting very commercialized in other words. It’s not like the good town feeling anymore. It’s—everybody seems to be out for the buck rather than give a little. Can you tell me about any humorous incidents that have happened to you in your career, Mr. Johann? Well, I always remember one thing that sort of stood out in my mind, was when I left Nevada and came back, when I arrived back in 1950, no ’52, excuse me. I couldn’t—there wasn’t a place to be had. You couldn’t find any place to rent. After looking around quite a bit, I rented an apartment at was known then as Rancho Motel just down from the City Hall on Las Vegas Boulevard. Never dreaming that someday that I would own the whole block with the Motel and eventually tear it down and build some new apartments and so on and so forth. I guess times do change. One thing I did want to mention regarding the airline industry, the fact is that with Las Vegas, you’re almost like in a hub. In an hour, you could be in Reno, Lake Tahoe skiing, in an hour you could be in Phoenix, Scottsdale, in an hour you can be in San Diego fishing, sailing, beaches, and ocean. In an hour you can be in San Francisco, fisherman’s wharf, fishing again of course. In an hour, I think it’s an hour, you can be in Salt Lake City in an hour and a half, Denver UNLV University Libraries Kenneth Johann 12 skiing, both places excellent. So you can see what the airline industry is to Las Vegas and so with this deregulation, it certainly has been an (unintelligible). I had one of the oldest first national savings accounts, but I lost it because I think that after so many years, if you don’t put any money in your savings account, or at that time, inactive account, they’d take it away. So I lost it, I believe I had a number like twenty-two. I always say I was the twenty-second person to have a savings account, but that was my number though, twenty-two. So I have to search the archives and see if I can get that number back and why it was taken away. When I first came to Las Vegas, I was just thinking, the main office of the First National Bank down in Las Vegas is where the Mint is today, and I’m happy to say that I, my friend I guess I have to call him my banker, is still with the bank, and so I just—if you know Las Vegas, Oakey Boulevard, just beyond Oakey I think is Wengert, and Wengert was the most southerly street of the town. If I can pin the Maryland Parkway area and around that—not counting the Strip, and the Southern Nevada Memorial Hospital, that was just about the edge of town. It was kind of a two-lane, kind of a narrow, dirty road beyond that point. Another example is like the streets, they don’t bare the same names today as they did years ago. As an example, Sahara Boulevard used to be San Francisco Street, Tropicana Road was Bon Road, Las Vegas Boulevard was Fifth Street, and Maryland Parkway was Twelfth Street. Another interesting part of my life in Las Vegas is the fact that I rented the house that Clara Bow and Rex Bell lived in. I’ve slept in—my room was her bedroom in fact. And the people who owned the house, owned land across from the city golf course, and there was nothing on it of course, it was just, you had a well out there, was like a—made like a reservoir. We used to swim out there in the mud holes so to speak, out across from the city golf course, which was way out into the boondocks. Another thing strange, that I should be taping this today—the other UNLV University Libraries Kenneth Johann 13 day I had about an hour or so in between appointments out on the Strip, and I stopped in at the Dunes and reminisced a little about that. Then Caesar’s, to look at these places and what they were and what they are today. The Frontier which has changed several time in its appearances, in fact—I intended both been deserted openings when it first opened years ago, I believe it was around, I think it was ’50, 1950, I think the Desert Inn opened. And then again, had its grand second opening, I think it was ’70, ’78, ’79 is what it was. And then the Flamingo of course, going through that hotel, I had lots of memories. Worked there for several times, couple of years anyway. (Laughs) I was talking with one of the employees there, in fact, I think it was Thursday. And we were reminiscing a little bit. She said she was there fourteen years and I remember that I used to serve drinks at the pool back in 1949. Thunderbird of course, I worked there as night auditor, and what a transition that place has taken over. Of course, now it’s called Silver City—no, I mean the Silverbird. That’s completely changed its appearance. ‘Course, there’s the Tropicana and I think anybody would come by today and look at the Tropicana and wouldn’t recognize it at all. About what I was going to say with the Silverman, was there fourteen years, and I said, Bugsy would’ve turned over in its day if he ever saw the Flamingo, what it is today. High rise buildings, and what have you. You know, people say gosh, how come you don’t own the whole city, you know, because things were so cheap then, that you could buy acreage you know—I remember I used to live on the last street out in West Charleston, and I could (unintelligible) our own eighty acres that he wanted to sell to me for two hundred fifty dollars an acre, and it was only about a mile beyond where I was living, and I couldn’t afford it. You know, eighty acres times two fifty, you know, that’s twenty-thousand dollars. That was you know, it’s like me saying to someone, “I’ve got a good buy, it’s going to cost you a hundred thousand cash, and then you’re going to have to pay more on top,” guy’s going to say, “Well, Mike, I don’t have UNLV University Libraries Kenneth Johann 14 a hundred thousand.” Well, you could’ve had the best corner in town, probably. So all things are relevant. It’s like what I was saying before, about the property, where the MGM is. Do you think for one moment that I would sell that for a hundred-seventy-five thousand dollars if I could afforded it and held on to it and sold it for six million dollars? But the property wouldn’t be worth that today because that’s progress. That’s you know, you have to sell and buy, and sell and buy and then the next person finally that somebody that buys it to use, he has to use it, because he paid extra number of dollars for it. He can’t afford to have it sitting vacant. So if that property didn’t sell on the Strip for a hundred seventy-five thousand dollars, then it wouldn’t be worth what it is today, because it sold for a million, and then for two million, and so with inflation, it’s what it’s worth. Mr. Johann, where was that property that you mentioned the acreage—where were you living at that time? Oh, I was living on Mallet Street, which is probably about three or four streets this side, or east of Jones. So even though it was far out then, it isn’t that far out today. Mr. Johann, do you mind telling me—how did you personally decide where to invest? Well, I guess it wasn’t much of a guessing game. We used to have an old saying, or a sale’s saying, I guess, we used to tell our clients that if they flew over Las Vegas and dropped a bean, no matter where it fell, that they bought that land, and it would certainly increase in value. I mean, we just had faith in Las Vegas. We used to sit around sometimes and sell the same piece of land two and three times in one day—sell to one client, and that client would immediately put it up for a sale, and you’d have two or three escrows going on the same piece of land practically. Well, thank you very much for this interview, Mr. Johann. Is there anything that you’d care to say in closing? UNLV University Libraries Kenneth Johann 15 Well, I just want to take the opportunity to thank you for allowing me, or inviting me to make my comments. Comments that I have made are my own feelings, are my own personal comments, and I also want to put on tape, I guess I ‘gotta thank the good lord for him directing me to Las Vegas, ‘cause I don’t think I could’ve been as successful in a big city like New York City, and being able to get involved in the real-estate field, and handle the types of properties that I’ve been handling or the size, in dollar-cents wise, you know, it’s nice to grow with a community and be a part of the community rather than be a number or person in a big city. I think you get kind of lost in the big city, so when they said “Go west, young man,” I guess I kind of tied up with that line, and came out here and got lucky and you know, now I just want to enjoy life. Thank you. Thank you Mr. Johann.