Audio recording clip from interview with Sonny Thomas by Barbara Tabach, February 28, 2013

Did your dad work in the mill? Yes, he did; he was a millwright worker. So when you were growing up was that what you thought you were going to be doing? No, I didn't never think I was going to do that. I wanted to be anything other than working the sawmill. As a young man I wanted to be a fireman. I didn't even want to stay there. When I got sixteen years old I got into the funeral business of Mr. Herbert Shelton and Mr. Frank Johnson. I started doing the moves and washing the vehicles, just cleaning around the place, and I just grew into it. Then when I graduated from high school I went to embalming school in Dallas, Texas. The school there is Dallas Institute Gupton-Jones College of Mortuary Science. My class was the last nine-month course; since then it's like mandatory two years now. So I went to school. When I got out of school I went back to Arkansas, but there just wasn't anything to offer. I had sisters and relatives here, and so we decided to come out here. Didn't get no job in the mortuaries at that time, but at least I got into the hotel and got started working. So you ended up in Vegas in what year? 1959. So 1959. So you're 19 years old. Right. And you've got this mortuary science degree, but you couldn't find a position with that? No. Were there any particular obstacles to you getting a job in mortuary? Well, it was only three mortuaries here at that time. There was Bunker; it was at Fifth and Stewart. Then there was Palm; they were right where they are now [Main Street location]. And then this place was called Sunset Chapel. They just said they had their quotas of people that they needed for working. They took my application, but I never got the call. So I didn't wait around; I got a job at the hotel. The first job at the hotel was a busboy at the old El Rancho Vegas. I worked there until it burned in 1960, so I think that was right around June. And then in July, July third, I was able to get a job as a dishwasher at the Stardust hotel and I stayed there until 1969. I worked my way up from a dishwasher to kitchen steward, the day shift, and I worked all the banquets and things. From there we worked a year and a half after they opened the Landmark Hotel. After a year and a half, we left there in December of 1971. Then we went to, well, now it's Bally's Hotel, but it was MGM Grand Hotel. I opened that for a year. Then they tore down the old Bonanza and built the MGM Grand. So you were there when it was the new MGM, when it opened up? Right, opened up the MGM. And you were doing what? What was your position there? At that time I was in the position of supervising the shipping and receiving and warehousing.