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Transcript of interview with Andrew and Debbie Levy by Barbara Tabach, September 12, 2016

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2016-09-12

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Andrew (Drew) Levy was born and raised in Las Vegas, Nevada, where his family became prominent civic and real estate leaders. His grandfather was Harry Levy, a former Las Vegas City Commissioner, and his father Alvin Levy was a former councilman. Drew is always proud to say that he never left Las Vegas and of partnering with his father in the Levy Realty Company. While growing up, Drew it was easy for a teenager to enjoy the perks that could accompany his family?s civic persona?such as casino shows, events and meeting early Las Vegas casino executives like Moe Dalitz. After graduation from Clark High School, Drew attended Arizona State University. It was in Tempe that he met Debbie Cheek, his future wife. When Debbie arrived in Las Vegas, she enrolled at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, where she finished her degree and started her accounting practice. She ran her business for ten years before opening Art Starts Here, an art school. In the 1990s, Debbie?s passion for art led her to be involved in the creation of First Friday, a local monthly art festival. She also teaches a summer art camp for the Adelson Educational Campus. Drew and Debbie became deeply involved in the many Jewish congregations in Las Vegas. Blossoming first at Temple Beth Sholom where they were married in 1980, Debbie sat on the preschool board and oversaw the temple board, while Drew was the advisor for the youth group. The couple later joined Congregation Ner Tamid where Drew was congregation president from 1999 to 2000 and Debbie was board treasurer in 2001. Debbie includes stories of her conversion to Judaism and keeping kosher. In this interview, Drew and Debbie Levy reflect on changes they see in Las Vegas, from when Drew was a kid to the times they raised their own daughters, Sarah and Jenna, here. Looking at the larger picture of the city, they describe booms in the real estate market and growth in the artistic and cultural aspects of Las Vegas. They provide a perspective of the growth of the local Jewish community.

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OH_02828_book
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    Andrew and Debbie Levy oral history interview, 2016 September 12. OH-02828. [Transcript]. Oral History Research Center, Special Collections and Archives, University Libraries, University of Nevada, Las Vegas. Las Vegas, Nevada. http://n2t.net/ark:/62930/d1pk0b37s

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    i AN INTERVIEW WITH ANDREW AND DEBBIE LEVY 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, Amanda Hammar 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 Andrew (Drew) Levy was born and raised in Las Vegas, Nevada, where his family became prominent civic and real estate leaders. His grandfather was Harry Levy, a former Las Vegas City Commissioner, and his father Alvin Levy was a former councilman. Drew is always proud to say that he never left Las Vegas and of partnering with his father in the Levy Realty Company. While growing up, Drew it was easy for a teenager to enjoy the perks that could accompany his family?s civic persona?such as casino shows, events and meeting early Las Vegas casino executives like Moe Dalitz. After graduation from Clark High School, Drew attended Arizona State University. It was in Tempe that he met Debbie Cheek, his future wife. When Debbie arrived in Las Vegas, she enrolled at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, where she finished her degree and started her accounting practice. She ran her business for ten years before opening Art Starts Here, an art school. In the 1990s, Debbie?s passion for art led her to be involved in the creation of First Friday, a local monthly art festival. She also teaches a summer art camp for the Adelson Educational Campus. Drew and Debbie became deeply involved in the many Jewish congregations in Las Vegas. Blossoming first at Temple Beth Sholom where they were married in 1980, Debbie sat on the preschool board and oversaw the temple board, while Drew was the advisor for the youth group. The couple later joined Congregation Ner Tamid where Drew was congregation president from 1999 to 2000 and Debbie was board treasurer in 2001. Debbie includes stories of her conversion to Judaism and keeping kosher. In this interview, Drew and Debbie Levy reflect on changes they see in Las Vegas, from when Drew was a kid to the times they raised their own daughters, Sarah and Jenna, here. Looking at the larger picture of the city, they describe booms in the real estate market and growth in the artistic and cultural aspects of Las Vegas. They provide a perspective of the growth of the local Jewish community. Both continue an active community life with Rotary Club, Girl Scouts, Junior League and v TABLE OF CONTENTS Interview with Andrew and Debbie Levy September 12, 2016 in Las Vegas, Nevada Conducted by Barbara Tabach Preface???????????????????????..???????????..iv Drew opens the dialog with an annotation of his ancestral lineage; stories of his family?s grocery store on Fremont; his father opening up a bar in 1964; family?s involvement in the Jewish community; attending conventions for the Housing Authority with his grandfather; memories of his grandmother. Talks about his father starting in the real estate business, Levy Realty; partnering with his father in 1989, going into development; growing up in a political environment; seeing the Beatles at a young age; story of his grandfather?s friendship with Moe Dalitz; Debbie?s experience meeting Moe Dalitz???????.???????????????..??????...1-9 Debbie begins talking about moving to Las Vegas and attending UNLV in ?78; teaching art for 24 years; opening the art school in the home; buying the home from Drew?s parents; her first impression of Las Vegas; being active at UNLV as a student; Shares her thoughts on keeping a kosher home and converting to Judaism; taking Hebrew classes together as a couple; going to Tucson mikvah for her conversion.???????????????????????9-15 Drew talks about being born and raised in Las Vegas; Las Vegas being an adult oriented city; Drew going to college in Arizona; Them getting married in 1980; Having their children and getting them to go to Hebrew school and Temple Beth Sholom pre-school; Dual membership at Temple Beth Sholom and Ner Tamid; Drew becoming the president of Ner Tamid 1999-2000; Looking at the temple as a business; Debbie being the treasurer in 2001; growing the membership and building the new building; Debbie meeting converts like her in the population of the synagogue; Debbie and Drew share how they raised their children????????????????.??.15-22 Debbie shares stories of her kids growing up in Las Vegas and how the adult business and corporation effected them; Drew shares stories of being a child growing up in Las Vegas; Thoughts about finding other avenues of work besides the casinos; access to kosher foods; celebrating Passover with large family; changes in the real estate business over the years; Debbie shares her vi insight on being an artistic person and seeking cultural events in Las Vegas; starting summer art camp; formation of First Friday; Debbie shares experiences teaching art; creating Jewish art; Debbie talks about the growing Las Vegas market, preference living in Summerlin; Drew shares the time in his life when he realized he was Jewish; his youth group gatherings; Drew shares his teenage high jinx; Debbie shares how different their girls grew up than Drew did.????22-38 Drew reminisces about his bar mitzvah and the large party that followed; They talk about how different each of their daughter bat mitzvahs were; Drew talks about never wanting to leave Las Vegas; Shares there appreciate for the freedoms that Las Vegas offers.??????..??38-41 vii viii 1 Today is September 12th, 2016. This is Barbara Tabach and I'm sitting in the Levy home. I'll ask each of you to say your name and spell it for us first, please. Andrew Levy, L-E-V-Y. And you prefer to be called Drew? Yes. My name is Deborah Levy, but I prefer to be called Debbie. D and D. D and D; that's right, same initials. So we'll start with you, Drew, first. Talking to Debbie, she's a convert to Judaism. So she doesn't have that ancestral lineage to talk about. What do you know about your family ancestry? I know that my grandparents came here in 1942. They came from Southern California. My grandmother was of Polish background and my grandfather was, I think, German background. Hers was Russian. Her grandparents were Polish. Oh, okay. My mother spoke Polish, Russian and German. Yes, that's the three. It's good we have a family genealogist here. We have some. Like I said, my memory. What were their names? Harry and Jean Levy. When they came here from what I understand my grandfather was working for the railroad and that's what brought him to Las Vegas from Southern California, and eventually got into the grocery store business, but I don't know or was ever told how or why he got into the grocery store business. 2 Do you know the name of the grocery store? The original grocery store on Second and Fremont was Market Spot. Then I think Market Spot moved to Casino Center and eventually moved up to West Charleston and Hinson with the name of Panorama Market in the late fifties. I think some of the pictures and stuff you got were from Panorama Market. Great. So I think he got out of the grocery store business around 1964 and thought he was going to retire and he ended up opening up a...They call them taverns now, but a little bar. It was called the Duck Inn on West Sahara and Richfield. Cute name. He always came up with some clever names. But it was the Duck Inn, a small, little place, and pretty much ran that until he did retire. Was he involved in the Jewish community? He was very involved in the Jewish community. He was one of the founding members of Temple Beth Sholom. I don't remember the original location. I don't know if I was around for that. But the original building I remember was on East Oakey. So he was heavily involved in the congregation. He was a past president of the congregation and did probably whatever else they needed him to do as a supporter of the congregation. So it would be good to say he was a business owner, an entrepreneur, and active in the synagogue. Was he active in anything else that you know of? Yes. He was a city councilman or commissioner at the time, what they called them, in the early sixties. He was involved with B'nai B'rith, I think. He was involved with Shriners. He was involved with many? 3 The Housing Authority. The Housing Authority. He was on the board of the Southern Nevada Las Vegas Housing Authority for many, many years, and they actually built a facility and named it after him that's over on Washington and Rancho, Harry C. Levy Gardens. Ah. Isn't that wonderful? Yes. That's a great legacy. So they named it after him. So he spent many years doing that. Well, me and my cousin would go to Washington with him a couple of times because they always had a big convention there annually and he would take us along and show us around town and do different things that way. What kind of convention? It was for the Housing Authority. The Housing Authority had...I don't really know what type of convention, if it was all the different organizations around the country got together annually, had meetings. I just remember going to the big dinner. The one time I went he lost me. He would drop me off or get me a ride to one of the Smithsonian?s or something during the day so I could tour around while he was in meetings and then he was supposed to come pick me up. The one evening before the big dinner they had, their final dinner, awards or whatever it was, he forgot which building he had dropped me at. That was before cell phones and different things. And I'm calling him at the hotel, "Where are you?" And he's yelling at me, "Where are you? I was just there, driving around and around. I didn't see you." And I said, "Well, I've been standing outside." The facility closed. I mean, the guards were not very cooperative. I'm saying that I'm supposed to be picked up. It started raining. Luckily I knew where the hotel was and I eventually walked from that Smithsonian?I don't even remember which one?back to the hotel 4 and scared the you-know-what?s out of him. How old were you? Thirteen. In Washington, D.C. But you said your cousin with you? No. He took us separately. I was by myself. He remembered your cousin, though? No. He would take us?when I turned thirteen and then when my cousin turned thirteen, he took us; we didn't go at the same time. So that was a real scare for him. Got back and had to quickly change into my dinner clothes, my suit and tie and get to the dinner. He was very...He was, I guess, appreciative or whatever, very embarrassed that he forgot me and went to the wrong property. It would be terrible to lose your grandchild. It would be terrible to lose?yes?if grandfather lost his grandson who he was entrusted with in Washington, D.C. Not the best neighborhoods, but I walked back because I couldn't get a taxi. I'm sure I had money on me that I could have taken a taxi, but the taxis had zones and they wouldn't take me and the guards wouldn't help. I just eventually said, "I'm walking." So it was probably ten blocks or something. That's funny. But he was involved in numerous things and got numerous awards for it, which I think were picked up and have been cataloged. Conference of Christians and Jews was awarded. You just have to look at them and see which ones. So you're linked to that part. That's great. I guess I was linked to that part, yes. 5 And your grandmother, what kind of person was she? She was the same. She was heavily involved in the temple with I think it was Hadassah or B'nai B'rith Women, always there on Friday nights cooking for services, cooking for special events; that was her life. She didn't work. She took care of her family and her temple. Was there a meal served after every Friday night service? It wasn't a meal, but there was what they call Oneg Shabbat. So there was desert and treats. You always did the blessing over the wine and you did the blessing over the bread. So she helped prepare that. She helped prepare all that. No caters back then. No caterers. The temple had a big kitchen and the women...that was their job, I guess you should say, that was their chore to prepare the Oneg and have it all out. If there was a special event that was going to include food, the women of the temple did it all and prepared it and had it out. When they had a Passover or any other holiday, it was the women of the temple that prepared all that. She was heavily involved in that. And then they had how many children? Two. And one of them was your father. My father, Al, and a daughter, Elaine. What's Elaine's married name? Turk. T-U-R...? K. She's since passed away. They were here for a number of years. They moved back to L.A. 6 probably in the early sixties because my uncle worked for my grandfather at the grocery store. When that was kind of winding down, he moved the family back to L.A., to Encino, and that's where my cousins and they spent the rest of their lives and grew up. But your dad remained here. My father remained here. Talk about your dad. Well, obviously he worked in the grocery store with my grandfather up until the early sixties. I don't know if they decided or he saw the writing on the wall that family-owned grocery stores were not going to be the best business to be in with all the chains coming in. When the big grocers started coming in, he decided to get in the real estate business. In the early sixties, probably timing with my grandfather selling the grocery, he got into the real estate business here in Las Vegas in the early sixties and worked for somebody else for a while and then opened up his own office, Levy Realty, and spent many years doing that. It grew to a large company, six, seven offices. I came back from Arizona, from Tempe kind of going to school, and he put me to work and got me trained in the real estate business. I was in the property management side while he did the brokerage side and had all his offices and managers and so forth. Eventually he got into politics as well. He was a city councilman for a number of years and at one point decided he couldn't handle a large real estate company anymore; it was time to move on from that and sold the company to a group of his managers at the time and opened up his own little office, just himself and a secretary. I was doing property management and brokerage. Probably late eighties, '89 or so, he thought that he was going to start doing some other things in developing and wanted me to come help him, and I sold my interest in my company to 7 my partner and went to work with him in the real estate business. Well, that's kind of nice, father-son team. Yes. We did that up until the time he passed away. With politics being so much part of your family life between your grandfather and your father, what's it like to be the kid in that kind of environment? Well, you've got to kind of be careful because everybody knows who you are. And he used to always tell us? Don't get in trouble? ?"Don't get in trouble; just be aware that there could always be somebody looking over your shoulder who knows who you are and could make one quick phone call and you could be in trouble." Did it ever work to your advantage, though? Sure it did. I mean, as a politician, both of them had access to concert tickets, good seats at a basketball game. Because of my grandfather?I was very young; I was eight years old?I got to see The Beatles when they were here at the convention center, me and my cousins, my cousin Mitch and Susan who are older than me, the three of us were at The Beatles in very good seats. As an eight-year-old, what do you remember about being at The Beatles? It was a lot of girls screaming and crying and yelling. That's about it. I was kind of oblivious. I was eight. I wasn't into music or anything. I was told that was the thing to do was to go see The Beatles if you could, so that's where I went. So that was an advantage. My father and grandfather knew a lot of people. They knew quite a few people in town. So it was nice. So who are some of the people that would?did they come to your house for dinner or anything like that? 8 No. It was business people. My grandfather was good friends with Moe Dalitz. My grandfather was good friends with a lot of the early casino people, as well as my father was. We could go into the hotels. It was always...We could get into the restaurants whether it was a comp meal or not. There were always those advantages. Moe Dalitz is always one of those people that's fun for people to talk about with Jewish history because he had that one side of him with the organized crime and all of that, but at the same time he did a lot of good things for the community. People forget that those gentlemen, the early casino people, were very philanthropic. They were very generous. Temple Beth Sholom was the only Jewish temple in town at that time, in the sixties and pretty much into the seventies and earlier, since it was born. So all the Jewish entertainers that were on the Strip for High Holidays or for a Friday night and Saturday that's where they came to worship. Shecky Greene, who is Jewish, was very generous to the congregation, spent a lot of time there, even Frank Sinatra and some of them. At Congregation Ner Tamid, which I eventually joined, we had a plaque up in the lobby that had Frank Sinatra's name on it because he had donated money. We also had Moe Dalitz' name on the religious school because when they were raising money to build Congregation Ner Tamid, he gave a generous donation. So they put his name up there. So it was very funny one time at Congregation Ner Tamid. I'm there for a B'nai mitzvah, for a bar mitzvah or whatever on a Saturday morning. I'm out in the parking lot helping direct traffic or whatever. I'm walking in and some folks were there from out of town. And the wife goes, "Honey, honey, look, Moe Dalitz' name is on the building. You know who he was?" And they're like whispering and talking and I'm just kind of giggling because people saw the other side of him. They didn't see the religious and the philanthropic side of him. 9 I only met him once and he called me Honey and I almost said something. I didn't know who he was. I was new to town, nineteen or twenty, I didn't know who Moe Dalitz was. I didn't know about the history, the Mafia history especially by name. And he called me Honey, which I hated to be called Honey in those days. For some reason I think I decided he was so old, I was just going to let it pass. And I went to Drew and I said to Drew, "Did you hear that old man call me Honey?" He goes, "Well, what's the old man's name?" I go, "He said it was Moe." He goes, "As in Moe Dalitz?" I go, "I don't know, he just said it was Moe." And then he told me who he was and I was like, oh, good. He probably would have laughed at me if I'd have said something to him about it. What were the circumstances that you had that? We were just there for a fundraising event and he saw me and he said, "Hi, honey." And I'm just like, you don't know me to call me Honey. He called everybody honey. But that was part of that mystique, I guess. I guess. But it didn't sit right with me at that moment. Well, let's talk, Debbie, about...You came here when you were nineteen. So what year would that have been? Eighteen in '78. I was at UNLV going to school. We were talking about what kind of things you do. I was taking a communications course and I needed to do something political. So I had access to go down to City Hall and gather all kinds of materials up in the council offices and they gave me whatever I needed so I could write my paper and then present it. Now, I took the side that the teacher didn't agree with, but I still had all the access to all the paperwork. So I finished up my degree at UNLV and I started my accounting practice. 10 My first job I found out I got it because of who I married, because of the last name. I didn't know it at the time. The person that had interviewed me realized who my father-in-law was, and so they put it down. So I was hired. It was helpful, huh? It was helpful. And when I was fundraising for Junior League and the synagogue, it was always helpful because I had a whole group of friends of Al's at the time that I could phone and say, "Hey, it's Debbie Levy. Can I get this, this and this for this event?" If it were a donation of tickets or for dinner, I'd always get a yes. So it really helped a lot. So they put me on every fundraising event because they thought, she's got a list; let her call. I would call. I knew that it was reciprocal; that there were times with Al in real estate he'd help them with deals. So I knew that they would give me what I needed. And I wasn't asking for the world, usually small things. So you moved here from? Michigan. Drew and I met in Arizona. I was going to college. My parents moved there for my senior year of high school. So I finished high school in Arizona and then started college there in Tempe and then that's where we met. When he moved back up here, I followed him up here. So I finished my degree here. Then I worked in accounting for ten years before opening an art school because our daughters wanted to take art. I opened an art school. I studied architecture, too, at UNLV. I went back and studied architecture for two years for fun. So I found a teacher though that knew?I knew the business side; having an accounting degree, I knew how to run the business, and I found someone in town who wanted to teach art. We formed a business at our house, which was the house he grew up in. So we started a business in the house and then it grew to the point where we had to find a location and we moved to Charleston and Valley View and had a store for seven years. Then I moved it up here. So I've been teaching art for 11 twenty-four years. So the name of the art school? It was originally Art Classes for Kids and then it became Art Starts Here. Specifically where was it at, the house? Oh, the house I grew up in? Yes. On Mason Avenue. So it's in McNeil Estates. McNeil Estates at Rancho and Charleston. So he moved into that house when he was seven. Then when his parents decided to sell it, they sold it to us and we moved our kids in there and they just were turning six. They lived in the house that their father lived in. We did sell it to our youngest daughter who is basically graduating from high school. That's such a fun area to buy in right now. But it was a huge house and when you have no children at home, at some point you go, how much house do I need? So it was time to move. It was hard. He had a hard time; it took me three years of talking to get him to leave the family home. What was that like to move into the family home? You know what? That was the home that I knew from the first time that I came to Las Vegas. So it was very much like being at home. We did all of our family dinners there. There were always parties there. Our kids used the pool. So it was actually really nice to be able to move into the home. We remodeled and did things to it and made it our own, but it was very nice to have that. Then when the families would come home, when his sisters would come to visit, they would have 12 the family home to come visit. (Indiscernible/daughters the same.) No, it was nice. So we were in the house for...Thirteen years? I think thirteen. About fifteen. Fifteen, yes, fifteen years. So you're a Midwestern girl. You said you were born in Kentucky. Right. Raised in Michigan, yes. Was Arizona your first experience with the West? Yes, it was. So you had that experience and then you moved to Las Vegas. What was your impression of Las Vegas? I hated it for the first six months. I actually hated it. I didn't understand why anybody wanted to live here. First of all, the desert isn't pretty?or I didn't think it was very pretty especially coming from Arizona where there's more to look at. The town was kind of small then. I think there were two hundred, two hundred and fifty thousand people. So it was kind of backwards. It was just about the Strip and I really wasn't interested in gaming. But I found my way at the university and so that made a difference. I got involved with things at the university and then I started work. Then we got married and had kids almost immediately. When you say you got involved in things at UNLV...? In the business department as far as if there was a way to volunteer as a student, I was. So I was really active at school, setting up Meet the Employer nights and things like that at school. Then at the same time I was at UNLV, I was also converting because I converted when I was twenty-one. So I spent a year at Temple Beth Sholom going through their conversion program. Tell me what that was like. 13 It was hard because I'm already taking fifteen credits. So it's like I'm taking another three-credit class or more. And I'm having weekly meetings with the rabbi and he's trying to convince me that I need to keep kosher and I'm like, "But the family doesn't keep kosher." He goes, "But you need to." That seemed to be the big one. I was fine with not having a Christmas tree because I understood that completely. I thought, I get that. But the keeping kosher and I'm thinking, ugh. So we went back and forth a lot on it, but I think he finally realized I probably was not going to keep kosher. And now I work at Adelson and I eat kosher every day at school. Well, I guess there's a difference between eating it and preparing it and keeping your house that way. And keeping your house kosher. Right, keeping your house kosher. But at the time it was Rabbi Appel and he was really interested that I engage in everything. So we had to learn Hebrew at the time and I had to take a prayer book and be able to start wherever they pointed to and that's where you had to start reading and go from there, which that was hard. I didn't keep up, so I can't read it now, which it would be really helpful if I could being now I'm in my second year at the school teaching. And I had to go through the classes with her. Yes, he had to be there, too. They required the future spouse to go through the conversion program with the converter, convertee, whatever you want to call it. Wow. The rabbi said, "The reason is, is so that you both basically have the same knowledge and be on the same page and learn the same thing, so you can discuss and be at the same position." I was Jewish. I grew up at the temple, Hebrew school to my bar mitzvah, and then shortly thereafter I 14 didn't want to go back to temple anymore, which most kids don't. When you're thirteen, fourteen, you don't want to do that. So it was a little bit of starting over for me, too, and it was nice for me to refresh on holidays and refresh on why you do this and why you do that. Oh, I had to take the test. She had to take the test. I had a written test and an oral test. They were serious. They weren't just saying? And she had to go to the mikveh and go through that process as well. And they had a mikveh at Temple Beth Sholom? No. We went to Tucson. No. We actually went to Tucson. There wasn't a mikveh in town at that time. So we went to Tucson. It was either L.A.? And going to the ocean. I thought, yes, go to the ocean. ?on the ocean or a temple in L.A. It just worked out that one of my sisters was graduating from college in Tucson and they had a mikveh at the temple in Tucson. So the whole class came with us and the whole class went to Tucson. So we went to Tucson and did it. Oh, that's interesting. It was a full year's course. I started in September and finished in May. And we got married in June. We got married in June. When you do the conversion, is there a celebration at the end or a ceremony or anything that sort of commemorates this accomplishment? 15 They gave me... [Laughing] That was it, just... Yes. We did a family thing because we were all there, but really there isn't, no. Interesting. No, I think I probably got a certificate. Didn't you get a certificate and a letter or something that certifies that you...? Because some temples don't recognize conversions. Some sects, the Orthodox don't recognize. Especially not a?I was at least a Conservative shul. If you're converted at a Reform synagogue like we're members of now, some Conservative synagogues don't recognize it. Some rabbis do not recognize that. Let's go to being born and raised in Las Vegas, and you can talk to this experience personally, Drew, and then raising kids here. So we'll start with your experience of growing up in Las Vegas. As a young kid it's just like any other place growing up; it was where you grew up. But as I got older I really didn't like living here because, like Debbie said, the city was geared towards adults. There wasn't a lot that I felt for teenagers, young kids to do. We'd go out on the Strip as kids. We'd get in trouble. We'd cruise Fremont Street as kids. There wasn't much else for kids to do, a couple of movie theaters, a bowling alley. So there wasn't much to do. So I didn't like that. I figured as soon as I graduated high school, I'm going to go away to school, I'm going to get out of here and I'm done. But obviously I came back. My experience in Arizona was fun, didn't get a lot accomplished. And my father said, "I think it's time you came back to Las Vegas, came home and got serious about something. You're twenty-one." 16 So that's when ASU was sort of the party school. ASU was the number-one party school in the nation and I took full advantage of it. I have a sister-in-law who tried to attend it at the same time. I went to classes. He used to sign up for classes and I'd say, "Why are you signing up for morning classes?" He says, "Because I have things to do in the afternoon." And I said, "But you don't go to class in the morning." So I thought, this isn't going to work. But I went to class. Whatever. And I was working down there a little bit, supporting myself at a friend's army surplus store and at a disco, working the bar and different things. It wasn't a career; it was just working. So he said, "I think it's time you come back." So I did. And then she followed. Kicking and screaming, she followed. We got married in 1980 and we had our first daughter in '82 and our second daughter in '85 and raised the girls here. They went through Hebrew school. They went to Temple Beth Sholom Preschool. Sara actually started at the Hebrew Academy for kindergarten through second grade, and then we decided the education wasn't what we wanted it to be and moved them to Meadows. At that point I would have liked to have kept them at the Hebrew Academy because then that meant we didn't have to go to Sunday school on the weekends. But we started with Sunday school and they started at Temple Beth Sholom Sunday school. Then they decided they didn't like that Sunday school. They weren't learning enough. They were being rigid from the Meadows and they were like learning a lot and so they needed to do the same thing in Hebrew school. So we took them over to Ner Tamid and they started religious school there. For a while we had dual memberships; we had two memberships at synagogues because Drew had his family history at Beth Sholom. We were married at Beth Sholom. So it was hard to leave what was our famil