Dr. Robert Skaggs was born April 2, 1932 and grew up around the St. Louis, Missouri area. His father was a teamster with a milk delivery route, tried his hand at the restaurant business, and during World War II worked for the United States Cartridge. Several members of Skaggs’s family were teachers, including his grandmother and a couple of aunts. Skaggs graduated from Normandy High School and afterwards attended the Missouri School of Mines and majored in metallurgical engineering. He graduated in 1954 and went to work for DuPont University for two years.

Betty Henderson was a private music teacher in Las Vegas, Nevada and dedicated member of the Nevada Music Teachers Association. She was born on January 23, 1923 in Portland, Indiana. She wanted to pursue a career in music and enrolled at the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music, but was forced to drop out after she started to become deaf. She married Charles B. Henderson, a civil engineer, in 1948 and moved to Las Vegas, Nevada. She had many different jobs in the city including secretary and company auditor.

James Roland Hinds, better known as Jim, was the Nellis Air Force base historian and a novelist in Las Vegas, Nevada. He was born in Okmulgee, Oklahoma on December 8, 1937. Shortly after his birth, his parents became civil service employees and moved the family to Washington, D.C., where James grew up. He recieved his bachelor's from Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri and his master's degree from Southern Illinois University in 1964. After that, he served in the United States Army for two years.