Longtime Gabbs resident wins school quilt raffle supporting student activities

Leila Horn won the Gabbs quilt fundraiser drawing, bringing a familiar name to the center of a school effort meant to pay for student activities in one of Nye County’s smallest communities. The Nye County School District said the Gabbs Tarantulas Handmade Quilt Raffle drew its winner on April 23, with tickets sold for $5 each or five for $20.

The raffle was more than a prize drawing. District officials said the money went into the Gabbs school activity fund, which helps cover the kinds of programs and events that keep a rural campus active for students who have few built-in alternatives. In Gabbs, where school and town life overlap closely, that kind of local fundraising is a practical part of keeping student life moving.

Horn was described as a longtime Gabbs resident, and her family bought several tickets for her because of her long connection to the town and its school. The district said she raised four children in Gabbs, and all four graduated from Gabbs High School. Her family also hosted an exchange student from Mexico in 1978, and that student later graduated as well.

Her own work history is tied closely to the town’s institutions. Horn worked at the school’s first cafeteria, later took a job at the local magnesium mine, and eventually finished her career as a Nye County municipal judge before retiring. The district quoted her as saying, “Learn something everyday and it will be a good day!!!”

The setting underscored why the fundraiser carried such weight. Gabbs is an unincorporated town in Nye County that was founded around December 1941 as a company town for Basic Magnesium, Inc., and published references put its population at 269 in the 2010 census. School listings show the scale of the challenge today: Gabbs School serves 28 students in K-12, while Gabbs Elementary School is listed with 13 students in PK-5, all of them economically disadvantaged. In a place that small, a handmade quilt raffle is not just a social event. It is one more way neighbors keep the school supplied with the support it needs.