Transcript of interview with Charlotte Hill by Clattee D. White, May 4, 2009

CT XHl lo$ y An Interview with Charlotte Hill An Oral History Conducted by Claytee D. White The Boyer Early Las Vegas Oral History Project Oral History Research Center at UNLV University Libraries University of Nevada Las Vegas ©The Boyer Early Las Vegas Oral History Project University of Nevada Las Vegas, 2007 Produced by: The Oral History Research Center at UNLV - University Libraries Director and Editor: Claytee D. White Assistant Editors: Barbara Tabach and Gloria Homol Transcribers: Kristin Hicks and Laurie Boetcher Interviewers and Project Assistants: Suzanne Becker, Nancy Hardy, Joyce Moore, Andres Moses, Laura Plowman, Emily Powers, Dr. Dave Schwartz n The recorded interview and transcript have been made possible through the generosity of Dr. Harold Boyer and the Library Advisory Committee. The Oral History Research Center enables students and staff to work together with community members to generate this selection of first-person narratives. The participants in this project thank the university for the support given that allowed an idea the opportunity to flourish. The transcript received minimal editing that includes 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. In several cases, photographic sources (housed separately) accompany the collection as slides or black and white photographs. The following interview is part of a series of interviews conducted under the auspices of the Boyer Early Las Vegas Oral History Project. Additional transcripts may be found under that series title. Claytee D. White, Project Director Director, Oral History Research Center University Nevada, Las Vegas Preface Charlotte Hill’s arrival in Las Vegas was not an instant love affair. She had grown up in Cincinnati, Ohio, and in comparison Las Vegas “was the worst place I haad ever been.” The year was 1952. He husband had taken a job with the Sands casino. Over the next six decades Charlotte would become an honored volunteer and community activist. Her first organization was the Brownies as a mother and soon was involved with the Frontier Girl Scout Council, about which she shares a delightful story about cookie sales. In 1962, she was a charter member of the Home of the Good Shepherd. In 1972, she founded the Friends of Channel 10 and became innovative and active in fundraising for public broadcasting. By 1974, she was the United Way’s first woman campaign chairperson, a quite successful one who helped exceed the one-million dollar goal during economically difficult times. Her other milestones included serving on Economic Opportunity Board, board of Boys and Girls Clubs of Las Vegas, as president of the Community College of southern Nevada Foundation and most recently being named to the Nevada State Board of Education. Charlotte’s community efforts have made a difference in countless people’s lives. She has been acknowledged numerous times, but counts the Alexis de Tocqueville Award from United Way of America as a crowning achievement. In addition to her volunteer work, she is a fashion consultant with the Carlisle Collection. v ORAL HISTORY RESEARCH CENTER AT UNLV LIBRARIES Boyer Las Vegas Oral History Project Biographical Questionnaire Name: Address: ^ ^7/ r 3 Phone: Day 73S'Sf/f Evening: Date of Birtli: /O/' Modier’s name and occupation: Fadier’s name and occupation: -*-*2 2 / r/ ^ Year you arrived in Nevada: 7*93 7L- VVliere you spent your childhood: If married, name and occupation of spouse: Date and place of marriage: 7^73L^7^ / Your current occupation: ; (3 Your current community activities: LIBRARY SPECIAL COI l crr,^, 4505 Maryland Parkway, Box 457010 l as V C TI *NS (702) 895 22?2 83S’ 89154*7010 This is Claytee White. It is May 4th, 2009. And I'm in the home of Charlotte Hill here in Las Vegas. So how are you doing today? I'm doing just fine. How are you? Great. The first thing I want to ask you — usually I start with your early life. But I love your furniture. Thank you. Is this from your travels? No, not at all. The breakfront was in our house on the Desert Inn golf course. And I have moved it each place I have lived since then. Well, it is beautiful. Thank you. And some of the pieces in there were in the curio cabinet of my grandmother and in the house where I lived as a child. So where did you grow up? I grew up in Cincinnati, Ohio. Tell me about that. Well, what would you like to know? Just what it was like growing up there, what your parents did for a living, how you left there. All right. Cincinnati was a very wonderful place to grow up as far as culture and education, which I certainly appreciate to this day. My father's occupation was — he worked for a company my uncle owned and he was the vice president of a — it was a machine tool and die company called Hisey Wolf And my mother was a homemaker. Any brothers and sisters? No. I'm an only child. Okay. So now, did you go to college? Yes, I did. I graduated from the University of Cincinnati. And how did you get to Las Vegas? That's a good question. My husband was in the hotel/casino business. And we moved here a week before the opening of the Sands where he was going to be employed. ] And what was his position there? He was in the casino, whatever the title was at the time. I'm not quite sure whether it was a floorman or what the position was. Okay. So now, is that why you came to the Morelli and His Music program a couple weeks ago? I came because I had lived around the comer from them, or rather they built around the comer from where we lived because it was — we built the third house on Country Club Lane. And so I was there before Antonio Morelli built there. So did you get close to Helen? I knew Helen. I was in the house probably once or twice. When I came to the house last month, the front part of it looked familiar. But I knew I had never been in the bedrooms or beyond the living room and probably the library space. Great. So did it bring back any memories? That was always my favorite house, not the Morellis' house, our house on the Desert Inn Country Club. It was a wonderful place to live. You looked out on the backyard of like 365 acres of the golf course and the most magnificent view of the Strip, which of course was far less extensive than what it is today. So which year did you and your husband come to Las Vegas? 1952. Tell me about what Las Vegas was like in 1952. I have to be honest. It was the worst place I had ever been. I was not sure I would survive even living here a year. Why? Well, it certainly was culture shock. I love fashion. The stores were far from what I was used to. And it just was not a wonderful place to live at that time. And, in fact, there was no place to live. And I think we moved about four times in ten days. So where did you start? Where was the first place? Oh, in some motel. And, finally, we learned from someone about an apartment that was going to be available on — I think at that time it was called South Fourth Place. We had to pay so-called under the table to make sure that we got that apartment. But you got it. But we got it. And was it a nice place? No. I was afraid of that. So how long did you have to live there? I'm not quite sure how long we were in that location. I think the next stop was a house that we rented on Griffith, a street or so off Oakey Boulevard, in the old Huntridge area. And let's see. The next one after that we rented a house on South Seventh Street. Then we moved. Probably at that point, the owners of the house were coming back to Las Vegas. And so we had to move again. And then we were going to build a house. But in the meantime while it was being built, we lived in the old Francisco Park. Now, when you were on Seventh Street, was that John S. Park? Was that the area? Yes. Okay. So that area was relatively new at the time. It had been a good residential area. And, of course, John S. Park was probably the best elementary school at the time. Yes. So when did they start building the places on the golf course of Desert Inn? There were houses on the Desert Inn side. And then on Country Club Lane there were two other houses. And then we bought the lot, I think it was in 1956, and finally were able to move into the house—building didn't go too quickly—in 1957. So this is the first house that you really liked? Yes. The others were temporary residences. So you must have been talking back and forth to your parents from '52 to '56. What did your parents think about this place from your conversations? My father unfortunately had died in 1950. And then my mother came out to visit several times. And then she eventually moved here. How did you talk her into moving here? She was a widow. And by that time her mother had passed away. So she moved out here. But were you beginning to like the place more, in '56 at least? Anything would have been more than my initial impression. Okay. Tell me about the house on the Desert Inn golf course. Describe it to me. It was a ranch style, one floor. I loved that house. And then in 1973 I think it was we completely remodeled the house and added on to it. Then it was just -- oh, answered all of my needs and, you know, things that I really wanted to see in a house. So tell me what the '73 version was like. The '73 version, we had added on. Well, what had been the family room had been converted into a dining room. And beyond that, we added on a huge family room with parquet floors, which no one in Las Vegas knew what a parquet floor was nor was there anyone here who could install the floor. And we brought theworkmen up from Los Angeles to put the floor in. And then there was just a fabulous cabinetmaker here. The company was called I believe Hoffmeister. And they installed and built all of the cabinets. Even then I was involved in many, many organizations. And beneath the cabinets and the slate countertop I had all built-in filing cabinets of the same wood. And it was just a perfect room to work in and to entertain in. I just really loved that house. Great. So how did you feel when all of those houses had to be sold? We had been long gone by then. Oh, I see. Yes. So we sold the house and moved in 1981. So we were not there during the period of time when Steve Wynn was purchasing the houses. You had already moved here. No. We had moved around the comer to Pinehurst Drive. Okay, good. Tell me about-- Can we go back one moment to Country Club Lane? Yes. I took this out this morning so I could show it to you. And as you can see, it's old and I taped it together. Jean Paul King — you can read about him there, about what his contribution to our news media and to acting was. He built the first house on Country Club Lane. So did he live in Las Vegas at the time? Yes, he did. And at the time when we bought the lot he was selling the lots for the Desert Inn hotel that owned the property. And Jean built the first house, he and his wife. And the second house was owned and built by Dwight Hoopes and his wife, who was the chief engineer for the power company. And the reason I'm telling you this is that we had waited so long for our house to be completed I finally said to my husband let's just move in even if it's not entirely completed. Well, no one told me that there hadn't been an electrical inspection and there wasn't any power. And Dwight Hoopes connected some very, very, very long extension cord from his house through the window of our utility room so I'd have some light in the house. What a great neighbor. Yes. But anyway, I wanted to show you this that I had kept after he and his wife and child moved to Los Angeles. And then there's a note on the back of that that he had written to me. That's good history. When we went to see the program, Morelli and His Music, tell me what that night meant to you. There were some wonderful memories of sitting in the Sands' showroom and having seen all of the stars. And I had listened to Antonio Morelli many, many, many times. And it was just a wonderful place to be at that time and to have the opportunity to see all of those stars. So at one point, then, at least for entertainment, Las Vegas began to be okay with you? Entertainment-wise, yes. That's great. Describe the Sands showroom to me. Why did people like that Copa Room so much? I guess now you'd have to say it was an intimate kind of venue. It wasn't some 4,000-seat showroom where maybe the entertainer is down on the stage and could be like a speck down there as far as your visibility. That's true. For a place that you didn't like so much you really, really got involved. How did that involvement start for you? It absolutely was out of the blue. My daughter wanted to be a Brownie. And I went to a meeting for the parents of the children who wanted to be in the troop. And a lady who had been a Brownie leader the year before said, oh, if you will take this troop, I would be your co-leader. Well, I'm sure she knew very well at the time that she was going to move. Anyway, she moved to North Las Vegas, which could have been like in another world for me at that time, and there I was with 16 little Brownies and no help. So that's how I started with the Frontier Girl Scout Council. And very shortly I wound up being on the board. I guess I knew that I was going to be able to contribute more, or thought I could, working with the adults. But I did continue with the troop until the time that — at that time I think they were called intermediate Girl Scouts. And then by that time I was, say, a district chairman. I was the vice president of the council and so forth and just could not continue and do justice to all of them. So I made sure that there was another troop leader for the girls. So tell me what a troop leader actually does. At that time we had meetings where — I don't know if it's still the same - the girls would come to the house. I actually had a lot of the meetings in a couple of the houses of the parents because my husband was in the hotel business and sleeping during the day. And so I would have the meeting at home of one of the girls parents. And then you met with them. You went through the Girl Scout program with them. There were things — I guess I shouldn't even be admitting that like I didn't even know how to thread — or couldn't thread a needle or make a bed, but I learned how to do it so I could teach them. So anyway, the Girl Scout program to me always advocated the intelligence in promoting not just activities but that the girls were learning and adhering to the Girl Scout promise. What is the Girl Scout promise? I knew you would ask me that. I should never have - on my honor I will try to do my best, yes, et cetera. Okay, good. As part of the adults running the program here, what kinds of activities or what kinds of things did you have to do? I worked with the leaders, gave them support services. I became a trainer. I did a lot of the training of the Girl Scouts and went to numerous training sessions that were given by regional and national people. I have to say that the Girl Scouts had some of the best training materials and adults that they brought into the national Girl Scout organization that were excellent. They really had some great people. ( So what do you think Girl Scouts, the organization, does for a young lady? I think it gives them what now everybody is concerned with, the self-esteem of the girls. I think it provides skills and, as they get older, career learning opportunities. So it is a well-rounded program. And, of course, camping, which I was never proficient in. But I saw what camping offered. And eventually, not connected with the Girl Scouts, but I founded and still run the Las Vegas Sun Summer Camp Fund. Good. One of the things that I know about the Girl Scouts — and I buy a box every year — is those cookies. Oh, the cookies. Oh, those cookies are great. Well, that brings up a cookie story. Okay, good. As a district chairman I was over all the leaders and the troops that were selling cookies in this area. And at the time Paradise Valley was a really kind of barren area. There were mobile homes out there and so forth. And this is when what is now Boyd Law School was Paradise Elementary School on Tropicana. Oh, that little building. Okay. On Tropicana. Well, the law school is there. Well, do you know where the law school is now? Yeah. You know it's on campus. It's the old library building. Well, where it had been on Tropicana — That's right. Yes. — and Swenson was the Paradise Elementary School. That's right. Yes. Anyway, this leader had ordered for her Brownie troop just I can't tell you how many hundreds of cases of cookies. And I thought where she lives the people cannot support this. What is she going to do with these cookies? Well, this leader I guess took her little Brownies, I'm not sure, with her and went to the Strip hotels, which she was not supposed to do, getting in to see the presidents of these hotels. And the presidents were too embarrassed I guess not to buy all'these cookies. And I was just horrified and had the wonderful job of going back to these presidents of these hotels — the Sands, the Hilton, different ones — and offering to return their money. And, of course, oh, no, I wanted to buy, you know. Including a man by the name of Jakie Freedman, who was the president of the Sands hotel. And Jakie Freedman was not about to admit that he had been coerced into buying these cookies. What did they do with them? I have no idea what they did with them. Oh, that's a good story. Earlier you had said that you got involved because of your daughter. How many children did you have? I have two daughters. Okay. So they both caused you to be involved. So really what you just told me about the Girl Scouts, we really already had the mechanism in place for everything that we're trying to do today to help girls. It was just an early version. It's like everything new — or old is new again. Yes. But you were already doing that. So tell me about the United Way. How did you get involved in that? And were you doing all these things at the same time, Girl Scouts and United Way? Yes. I got involved through my involvement with the Girl Scouts. And when the United - well, it was United Fund to begin with. I guess at the time I was probably vice president of the Girl Scouts and was there for the initial kickoff of the United Fund. And then when I became president a couple of years later then I was on the board of the United Fund. Now, the United Fund means that you had to raise lots of money. Yes. Yes. It changed the name and became United Way. Later on the name was changed. And then in 1974 I was the first woman campaign chairman. So what did that mean? What did you have to do as campaign chairman? Well, the president of United Way at that time was a gentleman by the name of Dick Schofield, who was president of the Sahara hotel. And Dick had called me and asked me to meet him for lunch. And, you know, I thought, oh, he's got some other committee or whatever he wants me to serve on. And this was 1973 when the economy was bad, probably not as bad as it is right now, but the economy was bad here. There was an oil shortage. It was when feminism was coming into its own or just starting. And Dick asked me to be the United Way — yeah, I guess it was United Way then — campaign chair. Well, I thought there were two reasons. One, it would be politically correct to ask a woman. And, two, the economy was bad and probably anybody who did it was going to fail. So it might as well be a woman. Those were all the things going through my mind. So it was for the 1974 campaign. And it was the first year that our United Way had a goal of a million dollars, which was considered a huge amount then. And the campaign was successful and we went over a million. So how did you feel? I felt on top of the world that I was able to do this as the first woman campaign chair, but even more was able to raise that kind of money to help all of the agencies that were providing the social, human care services. Right. To do something like that means that you must have gotten to know everybody in the town who had any kind of funds at all. Yes, I did. So what did that mean for all of these other things that we're going to talk about that you began to be a part of, Boys and Girls Club and -- It's something that enables you to carry those contacts over to whatever organization you're involved in provided it's something that is worthwhile. If it's not anything that I believe in, I cannot do it. So I mean everybody knew me. They knew what I stood for. I'm sure you're familiar with the name Paul McDermott. Yes. And Paul was on the United Way board as well. When I would go down to his office at Cragin & Pike downtown and they would let him know that I was out there, he used to walk out with his checkbook and say, How much do you want? And, you know, it was wonderful being able to go to all of these people and ask them to help support what I considered a worthwhile organization. c < Oh, that's great. That is wonderful. Now, after that or during the same time because I think you started back in 1962 -- what is the Home of the Good Shepherd? What is that about? It was a home for teenage girls. Some of the programs that I guess they have or schools in other communities were for unwed mothers. Ours was not. There were girls that were like pre- delinquent and would benefit from this kind of discipline and education. And we started the home. I was one of the charter members. There were twenty of us. And the home was over on Twain just off Paradise. I think it's probably where there are apartments now. I think it might be an apartment building. But there was the home. That was the first Home of the Good Shepherd that we had before we built the one out on Ann Road, which was really considered far out at that time. Oh, I can image. What kinds of programs did The Good Shepherd provide for young women? It was a school. And so the nuns were there. They were teachers. And then they worked through the court system, too, in taking the girls. And then some were privately placed where like someone we knew, their teenage daughter had taken their car and gone off, you know, and they weren't really very bad, but they did need some more supervision and structured life than what the parents were able to give them. So do you think that was a successful program or is successful? It was. It no longer exists here. So of these things so far, what did you enjoy most? That's kind of a hard question because all of the organizations to which I devoted my time and energy I felt were going to improve the quality of life for teenagers, youth, adults. And, of course, I have been devoting a great deal of my time since 1971 to public broadcasting both on a local and national level. How did you get involved in that? It was when I was president of the Help Center, which started out as being the Volunteer Bureau, then Voluntary Action Center, and then the name was changed to the Help Center. And one of the people on the board asked — she was employed at Channel 10, at KLVX, which at that time was 1C out at Vo-Tech. And she asked me if I would come and meet the station manager and listen to what he had to say about something. So I said I would come out there and meet him. And strangely enough, not spelled the same way, his name was Jack Lemmon. And I went out to meet him. And he told me that there had been — or there was a new organization called the National Friends of Public Broadcasting and there was going to be a national conference in New York and would I be interested in going and naturally looking at starting a Friends group here. And it was probably a book about this size or bigger with materials. So I said I would take it home and I would read it. And this was 1971. I mean it probably was the best-kept secret. There weren't many people who knew that KLVX Channel 10 even existed at the time. And so I did read all the material and went back and talked to Jack and said, you know, that I run the Sun Summer Camp Fund and that there is no way I could go to the conference, but there was no way that I could even think about doing anything until the fall. And going to the conference in New York I met a lot of interesting women who had been founding members and who had started Friends groups in Chicago and New York and Salt Lake City and Houston I think, different ones. And what they were doing overall sounded very worthwhile and something that I would like to try to establish here. But then I listened to what they were doing in Salt Lake for a fundraising vehicle, and I thought whatever that is I've got to do the opposite. They were having a Las Vegas night for their fundraiser. So I knew I had to come up with something that would be original. So anyway, I came back and after the summer began to work on organizing and founding the Friends of Channel 10. Who were some of the people that you invited to be a part of this? I had a board. Irwin Kishner is a name you might recognize. I had asked Irwin Kishner, Jewel Brooks, Charlene Scott and Steve Nicholson, who was the president of the community college at that time. What I did was kind of look at something that the FCC used to require, which was an ascertainment study of interviewing and going through the community and making sure that the licensee was serving all these people is kind of the best way I can explain it to you. And it also told you what kind of representation you needed to have there in order to accomplish this. And I kind of looked at that and used all of those categories for the basis of bringing people onto the 1] board, as well as I looked through the very, very little filing drawer they had of donors at the time and brought in some of those people. Edythe Katz, now Edythe Yarchever, was on the board. I’m trying to remember who else was there at the time. But that's good. That's excellent. And so you began to get these people in. And what was your first fundraiser? Well, the first one, not that I did but the station did, was going back and forth out to the station for this little on-air fundraiser that they truthfully did not know much about doing things like that. I think I went back and forth eight times that day. And it was like out in the boonies, or so we thought, off of Russell Road at that time. And another one, the SIP or the Station Independent Program for public broadcasting was not in existence. So there was at that time a station manager and a general manager. But the station manager bought some programming. And I think he paid more than what we raised on the air. And I said please do not do this again. If you need money tell me how much and I will try and raise that money for you. But the first big fundraiser that I did was in 1972 at Caesars Palace. And it was called The Auctioneer. I started something that had never been done here, a live remote broadcast from Caesars. And Muriel Stevens and I did the interviews of the people who were attending. People dressed in their very finest. We had a fabulous store here called Joseph Magnum at the time. And everybody was there buying their gowns and going for makeup for hundreds of dollars. I forget the name of the famous hairdresser and makeup artist who was doing the different people who came. And what I did was I had the general manager Ron Hawley get permission from PBS in order for us to be able to auction what is now called program underwriting, the right to have their name or the company's name associated with the program. And I did get a Corporation for Public Broadcasting Award for that. That was kind of the beginning of underwriting. My auctioneer was Danny Thomas. And then he had a protege with him. I think his first name, too, was Danny, but his last name was Prophit. And he had written a song called "The Auctioneer." And so that was the theme music that we used on our on-air promotion and there at the event. And we had different stars that came in who were on the Strip. And we did it all on live television. And people—it was unbelievable—sat at home and watched this whole thing that went for like about 1: four hours. So it was a very successful on-air fundraiser. So people could call and bid on things? Not that year, but the second year. This was all the audience bidding on the programs. And the menu was designed by Julia Child. She couldn't come, but she did create the menu. And that was another humorous adventure because the first course that she had said we should have for this elaborate, wonderful dinner was le truite en gelee. And I called the producer of her program and said where do you think in Las Vegas we are going to get the fresh trout in order to provide this? Well, there's a trout farm close to you in the Midwest. I don't remember. You know, she had no idea, no conception whatsoever where Las Vegas was. She was in Boston. So anyway, it was a very, very successful event. Great. So tell me what are some of the items that you're auctioning? We auctioned the actual programs so that I had a program booklet that said the McNeil/Leher News Hour, X number of dollars to underwrite 13 weeks or a year or whatever. I see. Yes. Sesame Street. Mister Rogers' Neighborhood. One person — I don't know if the name Duckworth would mean anything to you. George Duckworth was at the Dunes hotel. And Kim was there and they had small children at the time. And she went to the phone — there weren't cell phones, obviously, at that time — and called her husband could she buy this and have the children's names on it? So that was the concept. Wow. What a great idea. So we did that for three years. And the second year I brought in volunteers and had them at a phone bank and also had some of the volunteers in their gowns and all going from table to table. And the people in the audience, as well as those who called in, could bid on the program. That's a great idea. So we did that for three years. Then it was getting to be a very successful event, but it looked like our production crew needed more of a challenge. And anyway, what I did then was the next year I sent out a letter and said you won't have to come to another boring dinner, and if we are able to raise X number of dollars by such and such a time, we will give you a thank-you party. And we televised that at the Jockey Club, which was fairly new at the time. 1: Wonderful. So it was like a stay-at-home -- Yes. It was stay-at-home. But I mean the people came that were going to be on television again and so forth. Oh, great. Oh, that's wonderful. It surprised me to see on some of the things that you've done that you were part of the Economic Opportunity Board. Yes, I was. How did you get involved in that? I was representing United Way on the board. And then my term had expired, the Green Amendment came in and so forth. And then the County Commission had a representative on the board and the late Tom Wiesner asked me if I would represent the County Commission on the board. So tell me what kinds of things were going on? Was this in the 1970s? 60s, 70s. 1960s, okay. So you must have known Ruby Duncan? I certainly did. Ruby's a doll. Yes, she is. So tell me some of the programs that were going through that Economic Opportunity Board at that time, if you remember them. We were looking at various programs that were going to be self-help programs, Head Start, which I thought was wonderful. So you knew Lubertha Johnson? I certainly did know Lu and all of her wonderful hats. Yes. And they were all good friends. I spent a great deal of time over at EOB when it was on Owens and had lots of good experiences and bad. I was very invo