Transcript of interview with Blaine Benedict by Barbara Tabach, November 12, 2015

i AN INTERVIEW WITH BLAINE BENEDICT An Oral History Conducted by Barbara Tabach Southern Nevada Jewish Heritage Project Oral History Research Center at UNLV University Libraries University of Nevada Las Vegas ii ?Southern Nevada Jewish Heritage Project University of Nevada Las Vegas, 2014 Produced by: The Oral History Research Center at UNLV ? University Libraries Director: Claytee D. White Project Manager: Barbara Tabach Transcriber: Kristin Hicks Interviewers: Barbara Tabach, Claytee D. White Editors and Project Assistants: Maggie Lopes, Stefani Evans iii The recorded interview and transcript have been made possible through the generosity of a Library Services and Technology Act (LSTA) Grant. 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 University of Nevada Las Vegas 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 accompany the individual interviews with permission of the narrator. The following interview is part of a series of interviews conducted under the auspices of the Southern Nevada Jewish Heritage Project. Claytee D. White Director, Oral History Research Center University Libraries University of Nevada Las Vegas iv PREFACE Blaine C. Benedict (b. 1948) spent his early years in Philadelphia until the family relocated to Las Vegas in the early 1950s. His parents, Alvin and Jayne Benedict, followed his paternal grandfather, Meyer (Mike) Benedict, who was involved in gambling and liquor businesses. Blaine attended Crestwood Elementary, had his religious education and bar mitvah at Temple Beth Sholom, and graduated from Las Vegas High School. He attended Rutgers University [1966-1970], where he major in agriculture, was in the US Army from 1970-1972, lived on a kibbutz in Israel from December 1973 to May 1974?all before returning to live in Las Vegas and work his way up in the gaming industry. Upon returning to Las Vegas his parents urged him to learn the ?business?. Went to dealer?s school and worked his way up the management ladder to casino manager for Binion?s Horseshoe. Early experience working at the Garden Farm influenced his work ethic and even his major in college would become important in his future ?second career? as the operations director of Red Rock Canyon Interpretive Association. Throughout this interview, Blaine shares stories of his father, Alvin Benedict. Al owned and operated Benedict and Remy Plumbing Business for a few years before entering into casino management. He is considered to be the first college educated executive and had an illustrious executive career at the MGM. He also was a co-founder with Susan and Irwin Molasky of Nathan Adelson Hospice. v TABLE OF CONTENTS Interview with Blaine Benedict November 12, 2015 in Las Vegas, Nevada Conducted by Barbara Tabach Preface??????????????????????????????.????..iv Born in New Jersey; then family lived in Philadelphia for a few years before migrating to Las Vegas in late 1952; paternal grandfather, Mike, was associated with gambling and liquor came to Vegas to work for El Rancho. His father, Al, opened Benedict and Remy plumbing contractor business and worked on Golden Gate, Desert Inn properties; he attended Crestwood Elementary School. ?????????????????????????????????..1 ? 4 Talks about his father?s and grandfather?s careers at Stardust casino; father had a business degree and understood hotel food and beverage. Describes what he might do in a casino as a teen; positions in gardening department; recalls working his first job was at Howard Roen owned Garden Farms as a tomato picker; farm??????.???????????...?????????.5 ? 9 Reflects on why Jewish businessmen came to Las Vegas to work; what it was like to be the child of a casino executive; his father?s respected reputation; membership at Temple Beth Sholom and Hebrew school memories, including Cantor Joseph Kohn??????????????9 ? 14 Mentions growth of Jewish community; Leo Wilner from Temple Beth Sholom also his father?s closest friend. Talks about attending Rutgers University; being a teen in the 1960s; in the Army for two years before returning to Las Vegas and decision to learn the casino part of hotel business. Anecdote about being a cabin boy on Moe Dalitz?s boat in 1966??????????..14 ? 18 Shares how the television show Boardwalk Empire made him aware of historical connections in the gaming industry; Ocean?s Eleven, 2001 movie remake, use of his last name for one of the characters; his father?s opinion of movies? portrayal of Las Vegas; his father being one of the first college educated casino executives. Hi opinions of other important people in the evolution of Las Vegas gaming world: Jay Sarno, Benny Binion, Kirk Kerkorian, Steve Wynn?????19 ? 22 Talks about his personal career; having an agriculture degree and reluctantly learning to be a dealer; Michael Gaughn; Royal Inn; being a floor manager at Dunes; seductiveness of the work; being a non-gambler himself; types of gamblers. Describes typical day as a floor supervisor; the Black Book, being casino manager at Binion?s Horseshoe????????????....23 ? 28 Mentions father being a co-founder of Nathan Adelson Hospice with Irwin and Susan Molasky; also in Swimming Hall of Fame. Describes starting his personal transition into a second career; started as a volunteer with the Friends of Red Rock Canyon; steps to becoming the operations vi manager at the Red Rock Canyon Interpretive Association; retired after ten years there, comparison with his father?s decision to retire. Talks about his mother; story of meeting his wife while selling Christmas trees for Howard Roen?????????????.??.?..29 ? 33 Talks about his father?s group of friends; meeting place was Bagelmania. Describes his children?s career paths; son in Navy, daughter has history degree and story how she was recruited to work at MGM (where her grandfather had once been the executive). Children had bar/bat mitzvahs at Congregation Ner Tamid??????????????..........................................?..33 ? 36 No experiences with antisemitism; had heard there was an organized effort to keep Jewish dentists from practicing in Las Vegas; Imperial Palace episode. Talks about living on a kibbutz in Israel in 1973 for six months; missed the opening of MGM with his family; his grandfather?s humor?????????????????????????????????..37 ? 44 1 Today is November 12th, 2015. This is Barbara Tabach and I am sitting with Blaine Benedict. Blaine, would you spell your name for us first? First name Blaine, B, as in boy, L-A-I-N-E. Last name Benedict, B, as in boy, E-N-E-D-I-C-T. As I was mentioning, for the Jewish project what's really fun is to start with whatever someone knows about their ancestral roots. How far back do you have any idea about your family background? We have not done a real serious or detailed...What do you call that? Oh, like genealogy. Genealogy. So I don't have a lot of details for you. That was one of the things that I was hoping to maybe do in my retirement. But I would say I am definitely a second generation American, maybe a third generation. From the stories that I've heard, either my grandparents or great-grandparents, are Eastern European origin?Hungary, Ukraine, maybe Russia. What they did for a living, I don't know. It will be fun if you do get into genealogy to discover those stories. I believe my sister started to look into that, but we haven't done it in detail. So it might be very interesting. So where did you grow up? I was born in New Brunswick, New Jersey, while my father [Alvin Benedict] was in college. Historically, after he graduated we moved to Philadelphia. That's where my paternal grandparents lived, in Philadelphia. So I lived there for three or four years before the whole family moved to Las Vegas and been here ever since. So you've been here for a very long time. You came in what year? 2 Late 1952. And why Las Vegas?what brought the family here? Well, I'm not exactly sure. My paternal grandfather, my dad's father, had always been associated with nightclubs and liquor and gambling and those types of activities in other states, I guess is the best way to put it. So Las Vegas for whatever...I don't know all the details. My grandfather came out here first and went to work at the El Rancho. So he had to come in what year? Probably around 1950 or '51. Shortly before the rest of the family. Then from what I can remember and what I've known from listening to my father, after he graduated from college?he had a degree in business administration?he owned a diner outside of Philadelphia. Your dad [Alvin Benedict]? My dad did. So my grandfather [Meyer (Mike) Benedict] and my grandmother, paternal grandparents, had moved to Las Vegas. From what basically I can surmise, at that time there was a shortage of professional people in Las Vegas, professional restaurant and hotel people, people with college degrees, people who had backgrounds that were appropriate to this developing hotel/casino business, and so I guess my grandfather convinced my dad to move out here. I don't have this down in any place written. But anecdotally. Yes, anecdotally, my dad moved out for better opportunity. He had the credentials that would allow him to become a professional in this relatively new market. Oh, yes, it was brand-new. Right, right. So in your family?let's paint a family picture here?did you have siblings? 3 At that time my brother was already born. He was born in Philadelphia. So he came out, too, as a baby. My brother is four years younger than I am. Then I have a sister who was born several years after we got here. So I have two siblings. Where did your dad go to work then? When he first came out I believe he actually started his own business. He was a plumbing contractor. The name of the business?he had a partner?the name of the business was Benedict and Remy. However they made their connections, they built several?this is as plumbing contractors?they did plumbing work on several hotel projects around Las Vegas. They built an addition to the Desert Inn at that time. It was like a five- or six-story high-rise and they had several other interesting projects. I knew they did something at the Golden Gate because I can still remember going down there. He would take me with him and I'd go have lunch there or breakfast at the Golden Gate while he was doing his plumbing work; the same thing with the Desert Inn. Anyway, they had numerous?I'm not sure exactly how many years they were in business. Then he went in the hotel business. Did the plumbing business continue with the partner, do you know? I believe they sold it. I'm not really sure, but I believe they sold the business. Did you ever know Remy? Yes, Les Remy, yes, and his wife, yes, I knew them pretty well because I was five or six years old at the time and maybe they had the plumbing business until I was eight or nine years old; something like that. So then dad changes career. Believe it or not?well, before he changed careers?as part of our family memorabilia, we still have some of the tools that he used because the corporate colors of their business were red and 4 yellow and they used to mark all their wenches with these red and yellow stripes. So as a memento of our distant past, my sister and I still have some of those tools. Well, it's good to know why you have those tools, right? Right. Yes, wenches that are sixty years old. Wow. That's special, though. That really is. It reminds you of his career and the hard work that he came willing to do. Yes. Actually, yesterday I drove by the area where their plumbing shop was. It's off of West Charleston behind what is now?well, Holsum Bakery. I don't know whether you're familiar with that area. Sure. They've leveled all those buildings for some kind of redevelopment. I can still remember going to my father's plumbing shop. It's totally vacant land now. That's interesting. That area used to flood all the time, right? Yes, the underpass used to flood quite a bit. Anyway, the area where his first business opportunity in Las Vegas was is completely gone now. Where did you live when you first moved here? We've always lived on the east side of town. We lived in an apartment, I remember, for about maybe six months or a year while the subdivision that we eventually moved into was built. So we lived just a few blocks from where our first home in Las Vegas was at 1404 Crestwood Avenue. What neighborhood is that in? As we talked last time, I don't remember the subdivision, but it's just south of...It's between East Charleston and St. Louis; those are the major east-west streets. Then the main artery on the 5 eastern boundary is Eastern Avenue. Did you go to John S. Park School, then? No. Crestwood, Crestwood Elementary, which was a new elementary school at that time. Let's maybe talk about your father's career a little bit more. I believe the first place that he went was the Stardust. My grandfather, his dad, was there at the time. My father became the food and beverage director, more or less?I don't know what these titles were they had there?because he had the background from the diner. So he became the food and beverage director. The Stardust at that time was the largest hotel in the world. It had a thousand rooms. It was kind of the template for what Las Vegas was to start to become. I don't know whether that was his formal title or not. Then he moved up to...He had various responsibilities within the Stardust, I guess that's the best way to put it. Let me make sure I'm clear. Your grandfather worked there already. Right. What was his position there, do you know? He worked there. He worked there, okay. What was his name? Meyer or Mike [Benedict]. He was in the casino. So he was a casino executive, I'll just say that. Then your dad was about what age when he went to work at the Stardust? What year was that? So let's say that was 1960. So my father was born in 1923. He was in his mid to late-thirties, thirty-seven, thirty-eight years; something like that. So that was a big shift in career for him. Well, he had been in the food and beverage business because he owned a diner. It was a new 6 venue. Running hotel food and beverage, I'm sure the scale and scope is quite different than a diner. How long did he work in the Stardust? I'm trying to remember because after the Stardust he went to work for Howard Hughes. I don't really know what years those were. I could go back and look. I'd have to go look through some of his papers, which I have not been able to find them. They're at my house somewhere. But they were at the Stardust for a number of years, probably through the sixties. Then the people who owned the Stardust, I think they purchased the Desert Inn. So he was between two places. Then the Desert Inn was purchased by Howard Hughes corp and then he went to work for Summa. So did he ever take you to work at the Stardust? The Stardust, yes, I spent a lot of time there. I actually worked there myself as a teenager. What did you do? What does a teenager do at a casino/hotel? We had talked about this in our unrecorded interview. One of the advantages of knowing especially in the Jewish community where a lot of Jewish leaders were in the hotel business was they made opportunities for young people to work in these hotels during the summer. So the positions were like lifeguard. For me I started in the kitchen. I spent several years working in the kitchens. Some of my friends were busboys. Some even actually became waiters. There were positions in the gardening department. It was a place to teach you the work ethic. If you did a good job, they would invite you back the next year if you were interested. So it was quite a bit different than today because Las Vegas is kind of known as a "who you know" type of place. In this regard that's the truth. If your parents or neighbors knew someone who worked in these businesses, you could go to work 7 at fourteen or fifteen or sixteen years old. It was not like today where necessarily you have to be eighteen or nineteen. There's just different regulations and different policies. Who were some of the other people that you worked with at that time? Are there any people that we'd know? I don't know whether you've interviewed Gil Cohen. His father was an executive at the Stardust. Herb Tobman?one of his sons worked at one of the hotels, I believe. What was really interesting?and we didn't discuss this before?was during the time when they had the Stardust, the owners of the Stardust decided that they would get into growing hot house tomatoes and cucumbers. This is kind of an interesting story. Let's see, I was like twelve or thirteen. This is the early sixties, maybe '62, '63. There was a ranch that they bought out where I live now off Warm Springs Road. What they did was they built a bunch of hot houses and a packing house. This operation was called Garden Farms and it was a farm. My first job was to be a tomato picker. There were several of us, including Gil, who spent his career as a casino executive, too. These were our first jobs. It was not a fun place to work. In fact, at the time when I was eleven, twelve, going into thirteen, I had spent most of my summers playing Little League baseball. I guess the adults who watched me knew that I was not going to have a career with the New York Yankees, so that it was time to go to work or do something different. So there came a time when they said, "Okay, you have to get a job; you should work for the summer." Now, I was only fourteen years old, pretty young. It's not like we were an impoverished family. This was, okay, work is going to be part of your life going forward. You need to learn this part of existence, get some experience here. So I remember going there the first time. There was no application process on any of these things. You have to remember there was no application process. So we drive out to 8 Garden Farms, which seemed a long way from our house then. My father kind of dropped me off at the entrance. He said, "Just go down there and they'll put you to work. Just walk down and see so-and-so." I said, "Well, how do you know they need anyone?" I'm still holding out till the very end. I want to play baseball or prove that no one wanted a fourteen-year-old. So I said, "I don't see any signs. How do you know they need anyone to do this work?" He said, "Just go down there." He goes, "I think they do." So that's how I started there. Who was the boss, do you remember? Yes. His name was Howard Roen. You have some I believe in your collection. He was the brother of Allard Roen. Howard was always in the produce business. He was the manager. The growers, I can still remember them because they were my direct bosses. They were Les and Stacey Rogers. They were kicked out of Cuba during the revolution. They worked down there for I guess basically the same people who owned the Stardust and Garden Farms. Speculation on my part, but I believe that's the case. They were hard bosses, not mean, but they're trying to grow tomatoes in the middle of the desert. I even laugh today when I read about Fidel. Even he didn't want them around. There were a number of us who worked at Garden Farms. It was like a little club. Not everybody made it through the?Garden Farms didn't last too many years. It turned out to be unprofitable and unfeasible. Because of the weather or...? Because of the weather. I think it was still cheaper to get tomatoes from California than it is to grow them in Southern Nevada. I don't know what the tax implications were of having a tomato farm in Las Vegas. I've never heard of the tomato farm in Las Vegas. 9 Yes, Garden Farms. One of the things that those of us who worked there always carried with us was that it was real interesting that the people who worked there were migrant workers, down-and-out people who had run out of luck and that type of thing. So even today I can always say I was a field hand, a vegetable picker. It gives me a certain connection to a unique part of the United States. Oh, yes. You can relate differently when you actually work side by side. Yes. Even in my second career, when I was working at the Red Rock Canyon Interpretive Association, there came a time when my peer at the Bureau of Land Management was the son of migrant farm workers and we had a special connection because I had told him the story of Garden Farms and that I had worked picking tomatoes and cucumbers and working in a packing house. It was just the common thread that we had because that's what his parents did for a living. That's the value of those jobs. Right. It really is. It builds experience and character and you never know where it's going to lead you. Right. And sadly, it's kind of missing today. But that was one of the advantages of having a fairly tight-knit community. So why were there so many, in your opinion, so many Jewish businessmen who came to work in Las Vegas? Since the last time I've talked to you I've been thinking about this. I think it was just the opportunity for a fresh start. I'm not sure what prejudices or barriers they encountered in their professional careers in other places. I mean I don't ever recall as a child really hearing them talk 10 about that. But I just think Las Vegas was a new place, relatively new place with lots of opportunity. Some of them were visionaries. Most of us who lived there could never envision what it looks like today. But I think some of those people did have a vision that this could be a real special place, a world city. So that was part of it. Like I said, I'm not sure what prejudices or barriers they encountered in other areas that maybe they felt they could start over again. Another thing that I had thought about when I became an adult was there was a strong Mormon community here and they also were kind of a minority in many places and maybe there was some kind of synergy there that allowed people who were viewed as outsiders by the mainstream to be able to do what they wanted to do. I'm not sure. It's purely speculation. But it's a fact. Yes, I think that's all we can do is how you've experienced it and how you synthesize those experiences. Well, your dad's first partner in the plumbing business, Remy, what ethnic group was he from? I don't really know. What do people know about your dad's career? I've heard Alvin Benedict name many times. He was very low-key. So his watershed event was he left the Hughes employment and went to work for Kirk Kerkorian when they started the planning and organization for the first MGM Grand. That was the high point of his career, the construction and operation of the first MGM. As the child of an executive were you treated differently? What were the perks of being the kid of an executive? 11 No, I don't ever recall as a child ever thinking that it was different. Yes, we'd have dinner at the hotel obviously more frequently than some of the other kids who I went to school with whose parents were, say, bus drivers or other careers. I mean they didn't have anyone who worked at the Stardust or Desert Inn who would comp their Sunday dinner. But if their parents owned a car dealership or something, maybe they had...Everyone has perks if their parents are in professional careers, just different perks. You get your eyes examined for free if your father's an optometrist. So I don't know. I don't think anyone said, "Oh, yeah, there's Blaine Benedict; he gets to hang around at hotels." Nobody really cared. Where it did come in was as an adult and if those of us who decided to work in the hotel business for careers. That was a different story then if we had a reputation for dependability and honesty and reliability and some kind of skill set, yes. Then you could use those connections and you would have an edge up on somebody who didn't have family involvement in the major business of Las Vegas. That's a fact. So it's like getting that job at the tomato farm. Well, sort of. It's sort of who you know. But nobody cared about that, either, because summer jobs were fairly readily available. I don't know. I didn't go ask my friends in school, "Did you work this summer?" Some of them; some of them didn't. There were pool cleaning jobs, gardening jobs. A lot of kids had paper routes then. So it wasn't that, okay, I'm unique because I'm picking tomatoes. No, that wasn't the case at all. That's interesting because kids today don't have as much opportunity. No, it's totally different. 12 It really is different and it does impact their work ethic eventually in a way. I think with the demographic of the community that I grew up in, I know about the kids who had newspaper routes. There were other lifeguard jobs outside of the hotels, helping pool cleaners; things like that. There was a number of things, or ice cream trucks that came around the neighborhoods. So to your knowledge what kind of reputation did your father have as an executive? Oh, I think he had a very high reputation. He was a very gracious and generous individual. I'm not the only one who benefited from getting a job through my father; he gave lots of people jobs. He gave them second chances, as well. Now, was he involved in the Jewish community, the spiritual aspect of it at all? Yes, we were temple members. Like I said, he was very generous. I think that he was a past president of the Jewish Federation. If you look on their letterhead, his name is? I think you may be right on that. I don't believe he was ever temple president. He didn't want that. But Jewish Federation, yes. You went to Hebrew school? Yes. Did you have a bar mitzvah? Yes. At that time?well, still Beth Sholom is a Conservative temple. So we were members. We did the conservative lifestyle for the most part. Describe the life of Hebrew school. What was it like here? Was there mischief? Was there seriousness? I guess that my contemporaries and I, we were kind of fortunate in that we had a new temple. Temple Beth Sholom on East St. Louis was new when we started Hebrew school. So that went 13 along with this city that was inventing itself and there were a lot of new things here, new houses, new hotels. That was just something we assumed. We didn't go to a synagogue that was eighty-five years old. We went to a new one. It was in the neighborhood, as well, even though it was maybe a mile from my home. Sometimes we could walk to Hebrew school; didn't have to have the parents drive us all the way across town or take a bus. You could walk to Hebrew school or even go there after school. So that made it less intrusive if you will. It was just part of the community. No one liked going to Hebrew school, really. No one says they ?like? going to religious school, anyway. Right. The other thing that made Hebrew school interesting was Hebrew schools back then, they had an education director, I guess, but most of the Hebrew school was taught by the cantor. The cantor at Beth Sholom was named Joseph Kohn. Interesting man. I was thinking about this this morning because this is kind of a key to some of your research. I believe he was a refugee from Eastern Europe. And at the time he was probably?so we're eleven, twelve, thirteen years old?he was probably only about twenty years older than we were. He was a very young cantor. He was either from Hungary, an eastern bloc country. He escaped, came to the United States, served in the Korean War. He was kind of a dynamic person. I've known people who their cantor was sixty-five or seventy and they're fifty years older than the students. He was someone who was really quite energetic and youthful. It made a whole lot of difference. So his impact you was due to his youthfulness? Because he was younger than our parents, not by much but some, it was just kind of neat to be around him. He liked us. I think he took his job very seriously. He had a great voice. He did wonderful services. He just had an interesting personal story. 14 I wonder, what happened to him? That would be a good subject for your research. I'm not sure whether he's still alive or not. He was a cantor for a very long time. I believe he got into the real estate business at one time much later on. I just always looked up to him because of his story, his narrative. Back in the sixties escaping from behind the Iron Curtain that was a big deal, and then his service in Korea. So it was good. He was a good role model. Yes, he was. Now, did your sister have a bat mitzvah? Good question. It seems like a lot of girls did not. My brother had a bar mitzvah. I'll have to ask her. How did the congregation of Temple Beth Sholom change? Your memories are of the St. Louis location? Right. Eventually, the whole community is growing. We've got a lot more Jewish families moving in and people want different types of services and all of that. Do you remember the first time that there was another synagogue to choose from? When I got married and had my own children, we switched to Ner Tamid mostly because Beth Sholom had moved to the other side of town, totally the other side of town, and Ner Tamid was relatively close to our house. I never really kept track of that. There was always like an Orthodox temple and several small ones. Rabbi Hecht had his temple. I don't know when he 15 first came to town. So he was there, too. From what I can remember, we always stayed at Beth Sholom. The dynamics of why we stayed there, I'm not really sure. I liked it. Part of it was I just liked it. It was like family. Yes. Because if you get bar mitzvahed in that synagogue, it's nice to go back. I got married there at Beth Sholom. So the life cycle thing was very comforting to stay there. It seems like historically there was a lot of turnover in spiritual leadership with the rabbis at Temple Beth Sholom until Rabbi Goodman, who has been the longest serving. Right. I never paid too much attention to that. I did not look at the teachings of the conservative movement versus reform and say, "Well, I like this better or that better." I didn't have strongly developed preferences for the way I worship. So a lot of that wasn't relevant to me. Well, I should join the reform temple; you don't have to wear a yarmulke or whatever. I was just not interested in that. That didn't make much sense to me. I think my attachment was more personal than theological. Did you ever get involved as an adult in leadership within the Jewish community, like the Jewish Federation or any organizations like that? No, I don't believe so. I was never really a big joiner. Now that I'm thinking of the Federation, the other reason that we liked?like I said, it was personal. The director of Temple Beth Sholom, Leo Wilner, was a very close friend of my father's. Leo was another person that I looked up to. He was the temple...I guess that's the title that they have. There's the rabbi and the cantor and then there's someone who runs it. Not the president. Not the president of the temple. 16 Like an educational director or somebody? No, not even that. The person who actually makes sure that they pay the staff. The administrative part of it. Temple administrator was Leo Wilner. What was he like? His son still lives here, Marty Wilner. Leo was one of my father's closest friends and I knew Leo very well, too. He's an outstanding individual and a very important part of the community because I think he handled temple politics very well. He was like the honest broker. What are temple politics like? I don't know. Leo was a big (factor); one of the reasons that we always stayed. If you want...I'm going to have to go back in my records and I will look at this for you, Barbara. I have a letter that my dad wrote either to the temple board or to the temple president about Leo. I keep it with me in my dresser drawer. There was some question one time about Leo's salary or him continuing on. My dad wrote this letter that told them that he thought Leo was one of the finest administrators he'd ever run across in any field and that if the temple wasn't interested in him that he would hire him. I will bring that letter so you can scan that. Oh, that would be great. It's a very interesting letter. W