Dr. Donald Baepler was born in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada in July of 1932. The family moved to Springfield, Illinois in 1936, where his father was president of Concordia Seminary. Donald decided at the age of seven that he wanted to pursue a Ph.D. in ornithology, not an unusual goal in his family. By the time he graduated high school, he knew that he wanted to attend Carlton College in Minnesota to study under Olin Sewall Pettingill. He followed world-famous ornithologist and artist George Sutton to Michigan and then to Oklahoma to complete his doctorate.

DIRECT QUOTE: email from UNLV Official to UNLV community Dec 16, 2016: "The UNLV School of Social Work faculty and staff are saddened by the news of the passing of Leroy Pelton, Professor Emeritus of the School of Social Work. An advocate for children’s welfare and the homeless, he was well respected both on campus and in the community, and he will be missed dearly. Our sincere condolences go out to his family and friends, his former colleagues, and the many students he taught during his tenure.

Myra Berkovits (née Mosse) was born April 10, 1944 in Chicago, Illinois. Her father emigrated from Romania to Canada, later moving to Chicago, where he met Berkovits’s mother, a daughter of Russian immigrants. After graduating from Loyola University, Berkovits married and started her career as an educator teaching at an elementary school in inner city Chicago. She taught there for twelve years before moving with her husband, son and daughter to Las Vegas, Nevada.