Top Ten Western towns

The top “true Western towns,” from True West magazine.

1. Sheridan, Wyo.

2. Cody, Wyo.

3. Carson City, Nev.

4. Silver City, N.M.

5. Guthrie, Okla.

6. Prescott, Ariz.

7. Leadville, Colo.

8. Pendleton, Ore.

9. Goliad, Texas

10. Helper, Utah

Vegas New Year’s

Las Vegas – A massive street party, fireworks from casino rooftops and the music of Frank Sinatra, Sammy Davis Jr. and Elvis Presley will all be part of Las Vegas’ annual New Year’s Eve celebration.

“We’re ending our centennial year with a bang, literally,” Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman said with a nod to the planned midnight fireworks show and the finale to Sin City’s yearlong 100th anniversary.

Event officials and contractor Fireworks by Grucci says that this year’s $500,000 pyrotechnics show will feature more than 40,000 shells fired from the top of 10 hotel-casinos along the four-mile Strip.

The downtown Fremont Street Experience pedestrian-casino mall plans to feature live music and entertainment.

For details, go to www.americasparty2006.com.

Butterfly sighting

Mission, Texas – Nature enthusiasts in south Texas are catching some of the first-ever sightings of certain butterflies in the United States.

A broad-tipped clearwing was spotted in early December at the North American Butterfly Association’s International Butterfly Park in Mission, Texas, by about a dozen spectators, according to Sue Sill, executive director of NABA.

The creature’s transparent wings are ringed in orange but otherwise the wings “look like cellophane,” Sill said.

The park will be closed through Jan. 2 but is usually open from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily. For more information, go to http://www.naba. org and click on “NABA Int’l Butterfly Park.”