Joshua Cohen, Eli M. Delgado Jr., and Evan Ranes oral history interview, 2024 June 15

Oral history interview with Joshua Cohen, Eli M. Delgado Jr., and Evan Ranes conducted by Stefani Evans and Claytee D. White on June 15, 2024 for Game On! The Oral History of Las Vegas Sports project. In this interview, the three discuss how the local history of fencing and fencing clubs is woven into the national and international history of the sport. Cohen, at least a generation younger than Delgado and Ranes, arrived in Las Vegas in 2006 just before his senior year at Chaparral High School. His father was a "saberist" fencer, and Joshua took up foil fencing in middle school and early high school. He joined Battle Born Fencing Club as a post-lockdown activity in 2021. Eli M. Delgado Jr. is the second generation of his family to pursue an Air Force career. He began fencing at age 30 when he was stationed in Turkey and has fenced ever since. Evan Ranes took up fencing in high school under an excellent Olympic coach. A professional drummer, he and his wife moved to Las Vegas in 1985, where he made a living until the 1989 musicians strike, whereupon he went to UNLV to earn his MBA in Finance. He describes other fencers who came to Las Vegas to open clubs, and credits Sean and Cynthia Ameli for growing the youth fencing program in Southern Nevada. The three then go to the back wall of the club, decorated in awards, to discuss the local youth who fence and matriculate into elite universities. Digital audio and photographs available.