When Fernando Romero (b 1946) started school as a Spanish-only speaker in the barrios of El Paso, Texas, he quickly picked up English, excelled in classes, and proudly claims his Chicano identity. Education came with good and bad teachers, the bad believing they were entitled to pick on the brown-skinned children. These were early lessons for Fernando, who describes his harsher lessons would come when he enrolled at Nevada Southern (known as UNLV today.)

Alexander Kuelchel, a survivor of the Holocaust, was born in Berlin, Germany to parents who originally came from Poland. He attended a Christian school until Adolf Hitler came into power, then he was moved to a private school that had a synagogue in the back.

Andrew "Drew" Levy was born 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.

Florence J. Murphy was a pilot and developer of commercial aviation in Nevada. She was born on December 13, 1911 in Fernley, Nevada as Colanthe Jones, but later changed her name to Florence after her favorite aunt. She attended the University of Nevada, Reno before marrying John Murphy. They moved to Las Vegas, Nevada in 1936 where Murphy began working as a legal secretary and had her first experience piloting an airplane. She later took piloting lessons, and received a piloting and instructor's license by 1941.

Claes Oldenburg is an artist and scultpor resposnible for the Flashlight sculpture between the Artemus Ham Concert Hall and the Judy Bayley Theatre on the University of Nevada, Las Vegas campus. He was born in 1929 in Stockholm, Sweden. Because of his father's job as a diplomat, the family moved frequently between the United States and Norway until they settled down in Chicago, Illinois in 1936.