Lois Goodall was born July 18, 1938 in Odessa, Missouri to a father who was a farmer and a teacher mother. Goodall went to college to become a teacher, and her freshman year met a young sophomore gentleman by the name of Pat Goodall. They married and while Goodall attended graduate school at the University of Missouri, she taught fifth grade.

Janis Riceberg moved to Las Vegas, Nevada in 1974 while attending Long Beach State University. She worked as a special education teacher for the Clark County School District for twenty years and began teaching at the College of Southern Nevada in 2003.