Roscoe Wilkes was born in Bonanza, Colorado on Janruary 25, 1918. He moved with his family to Pioche, Nevada in 1927. He was a lead zinc miner, a grade school teacher, and a PBX operator before he enlisted in the military during World War II. Wilkes was a prisoner of war in Romania. He got a law degree and went back to Pioche where he was a district attorney and later a judge.
Edna “Ande” Rice was born October 01, 1943 in Oak Park, Illinois. She was raised Protestant to a mother who was a teacher and a father who was a mechanical engineer. Rice graduated from Illinois State University with her bachelor’s degree and attended Roosevelt University to obtain her master’s degree in education administration. Rice met her partner, Sharon Maurer-Schwartz, in the 1980s, but was not able to legally marry her until 2008 in California. They moved to Las Vegas, Nevada in 1999 and raised Maurer-Schwartz’s daughter Julie together.
Dianna Davis worked at the Clark County School District [CCSD] after a short stint as a maid where she was accosted by a hotel visitor and worked in fear afterwards. CCSD was better; she became a baker at the location that supplied food for all the schools in the county. Her fond memory is her favorite teacher, Mrs. Moten, who instilled a pride in blackness in her African American students. [Mrs. Moten is the mother of Fred Moten, the critical thinker of our times who is Professor of Performance Studies at NY University.]