The Wolf Pack will have a new starting quarterback next season.

Brendon Lewis, who has played the majority of snaps the past two seasons, has committed to play football for Memphis next year.

Lewis played in 24 games at Nevada, completing 342 passes on 548 attempts for 3,603 yards, 18 touchdowns and 13 interceptions. He finishes his Wolf Pack career with a QB rating of 123.7.

Lewis previously played for the University of Colorado Buffaloes from 2020 to 2022.

His departure leaves two quarterbacks on the Nevada roster for next season who played in 2024 — AJ Bianco and Chubba Purdy — along with incoming freshman Carter Jones, who coach Jeff Choate raved about on signing day Dec. 3.

Lewis’ departure wasn’t the only transfer portal roster change for Nevada. Wolf Pack offensive lineman Isaiah World has committed to Oregon and fellow linemen Tyson Ruffins will play for Stanford, while Josiah Timoteo will move to Oregon State.

The Wolf Pack has added Bryce Echols (6-foot-5, 271 pounds) a defensive lineman who played for Arizona last season and Hadine Diaby (6-3, 300) and offensive lineman who played for Tennessee State

The winter transfer window closes Saturday, Dec. 28. The spring window is set for 10 days, opening April 16 and closing April 25.

Nevada football transfer portal 2024-25

• Isaiah World, OT, RS Jr, 6-87, 280, to Oregon
• Brendon Lewis, QB, RS Jr, 6-3, 209, to Memphis
• Ike Nnakenyi, edge, RS So, 6-3, 220
• KK Meier, S, RS So, 6-1, 203
• Jonah Lewis, CB, so., 5-10, 168
• Tyson Paala-Ruffins, OL, So., 6-3, 205, to Stanford
• Drue Watts, LB, RS Jr, 6-1, 215
• Mackavelli Malotumau, DL, Jr, 6-1, 290
• Josiah Timoteo, OL, So, 6-4, 300,, to Oregon State
• Luke Farr, OT, Fr., 6-6, 283
• Sean Dollars, RB, RS Sr, 5-10, 185
• Carter Jula, P, Fr, 6-2, 205
• Devin Gunter, CB, Sr, 5-11, 175

LAS VEGAS (KTNV) — Richard Bryan won the first political contest he ever ran, for 8th grade class president at John S. Park Elementary School.

That was his first entry into a political career that would take him from the Nevada Legislature, to the office of the attorney general to the governor’s mansion and finally to the United States Senate.

He recounts that storied career in a new book, “My Life in Nevada Politics,” penned with award-winning Nevada writer and columnist for the Nevada Independent John L. Smith.

Longtime locals will recognize many famous names, the people behind streets, schools and government buildings, and newcomers will learn that many of the things they take for granted started with the ambitious Bryan, who says he set his sights on the governor’s mansion early in his grade-school career.

In an interview, Bryan recalls arriving in Carson City as a Democrat in 1968 to an Assembly newly controlled by Republicans. But the experience was not partisan.

“Part of the general collegiality, I believe, was derived from the building itself,” Bryan says in the book. “It was crowded, and we had no offices to retreat to. Only the leaders of each house had them. Legislators did not have a personal staff. You brought your work with you to your desk on the floor and shared from a pool of secretaries after the morning business was concluded. Everyone had to work around everyone else’s schedule. There was no cafeteria. That meant there was mingling on the floor during breaks.”

That meant getting to know other lawmakers, ones from other parties and from other parts of the state, which led to genuine friendships between lawmakers and cooperation in solving the problems the state faced.

But that collegiality faded over time, in Washington, D.C. and, to a lesser extent, in Carson City. In an interview, Bryan traces the unraveling to the election in 1994 of Georgia Congressman Newt Gingrich as Republican speaker of the House of Representatives. Gingrich discouraged Republicans from socializing with Democrats because he considered them rivals and not friends.

“The scholars I’m sure have their view,” Bryan said. “Mine is Newt Gingrich, by the way, a very intelligent and capable guy. But his predecessor … was of the old school, let’s work together. Gingrich believed that what was needed was not some modification but to take the structure down and build it again. And that was very partisan.”

The partisanship is part of the reason that Bryan decided after two terms in the. U.S. Senate not to run for re-election in 2000. His replacement? One of Gingrich’s House revolutionaries from the 1994 election, Republican John Ensign.

During his career, Bryan faced the bitter sectionalism that has plagued Nevada for decades. In college, he was initially rebuffed as his fraternity’s pledge president because he was from Las Vegas. But by making incessant trips to rural Nevada — and participating in traditional rural Nevada events — Bryan won over northern constituents. In his 1986 bid for governor, Bryan won every county in the state, something unprecedented in present-day Nevada politics.

In his time, Bryan also assembled an impressive list of firsts:

• He was the first lawyer to head up the then-newly created public defenders office.
• He was behind some of the state’s first conflict-of-interest laws.
• He signed the bill creating the Nevada Film Office.
• He opened a state trade office in Japan.
• He hired the first woman to serve as chief of staff in the governor’s office, Marlene Lockard.
• He brought the National Finals Rodeo to Las Vegas.
• He got the Southern Nevada Public Lands Management Act passed.

Key to getting many of those things done was compromise, which Bryan considers a lost art because he says too many modern politicians think it requires you to surrender your principles.
“I never felt that,” Bryan said. “I guess among my critics I might have been too much of a pragmatist. What does it take to get this done? How can we work this out? Now, I wasn’t always successful. Sometimes, I mean, you had people kind of dug in and boy, there was not ability to do that.”

Bryan traces his path into public service to his father, who also held office.

“I think every citizen has an obligation, as he [Oscar Bryan] said, to pay your civic rent, to be involved. I like public service. Not everybody needs to do that. I think there’s something that’s fundamental. One, set your goal. Set your goal, work to it. … The point there is that everybody’s had a setback in their life, whatever it is, that could be a learning experience. It was for me.”

Bryan acknowledges that it would be difficult to campaign today as he did in the 1970s and 1980s, with the advent of social media, the 24-hour news cycle, the explosion of Nevada’s population and the increased partisanship that shuts out centrist candidates in favor of louder, more strident members of the fringe.

“I must say, it’s such a sad thing because it’s really harder today to get good people to run, Republican, Democrat, independent, whatever, because they’re saying, ‘I just don’t want to go through that.’”

ELY, Nevada — Utah isn’t the only state in the Mountain West celebrating the holidays.

The Nevada Northern Railway brings in the cheer with an adventure to the North Pole on “Santa’s Reindeer Flyer” Christmas train.

“We leave from the East Ely Depot and we head to the North Pole,” said Mark Bassett, the president of the Nevada Northern Railway Museum. “We don’t have any snow in Ely right now, but we have a special agreement with Santa and we go through the ‘Magic Switch.’ The Magic Switch lets us get to the North Pole lickety-split.”

Watch the video above for more from Santa and the kids who experienced the magic!

There’s still plenty of time to make it to the event. It will happen again Monday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday this week.

Then on Jan. 18 in Ely, you can watch fireworks being shot off the back of a moving steam locomotive during the Fire and Ice Festival.

For more information on these events, go to www.NNRY.com.