Thank you. Really.

Welcome to this week’s Reno News & Review, the Biggest Little Best of Northern Nevada 2010.

I think I’m on my 15th year of this readers’ poll. Some things about these monsters don’t change: They’re always just short of too much to do for a small staff. Others do change: Every year we get closer to a perfect system for reader input; every year we get a new artist. We’re already working on ideas for next year. Anyway, one thing that doesn’t change is there are always those who go the extra mile who deserve special thanks for putting this thing together.

First, thanks to Asa Gilmore the photographic artist who illustrated the theme of this year’s issue, Mark Twain’s Roughing It. Asa asked that our models be thanked: McAvoy Lane as Mark Twain, Scott Reeves, Lamar Baxla, Chic DiFrancia, Stephanie Hogen, Gregory Lintz, Johnny Vandenberg, Kari Vandenberg, Preston and Chandler Friedberg. Special thanks for providing props and other help go to the Tahoe Maritime Museum, Mark Twain Museum, Fourth Ward School and Ron and Lisa Bommarito.

But art isn’t the only thing that makes this Best Of stand out. Our operations staff also works like crazy to do the technical stuff to enable readers’ choices to be counted accurately. Thanks Ric Marques, Kelsey Falle and Aaron McCormack.

Thank you to the advertising and business staff for making this really big: General manager John Murphy, Rich Hoskins, Gina Odegard, Bev Savage, Karen Brooke and Meleva Hill.

Apologies and thanks to our drivers who get to lug around 30 percent more newsprint.

Thanks to those ad designers who have to design their fingers to the bone to make the advertising as beautiful as art director David Jayne’s layout.

Thanks, too, to all the people who voted—more than 4,000 of you—and congratulations to all the people who won.

From myself and the editorial staff: Kat Kerlin, Dennis Myers, Brad Bynum, Kelley Lang, Audrey Love and Dana Nollsch, THANKS!