Horacio Lopez was born on January 12, 1938, in Cordova, New Mexico to Elias and Cordelia Lopez. Lopez describes his hometown as self-sufficient and self-reliant and that his family grew their own food and raised livestock. His father only received a second-grade education and worked as a miner.

Anna Dean Kepper was Curator of the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV) Library Department of Special Collections from 1973 until her death in 1983. After attaining degrees in museology and American folk culture from the State University of New York in Oneonta, New York, she moved to Las Vegas, Nevada in 1973. Kepper was active in various university affairs and served on numerous committees including budget and planning, procedures and policy, public relations, the Museum of Natural History, and beautification.

George Rudiak (1915 – 1995) was born in Moscow, Russia. At the age of five, George emigrated with his Jewish parents to the United States in 1920. He was raised in Los Angeles, California and received his law degree from the University of California at Berkeley in 1942.

1942 was the same year the draft into armed services dogged him. Rather than be drafted, he chose to enlist in the US Army Corps. The same year he married the energetic Gertrude (née Rightman) Rudiak.