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Gemma, Joseph, 1934-
Joseph Gemma was born October 25, 1934 in Norwalk, Connecticut. He moved to Las Vegas, Nevada in 1953 looking for a chance at better living opportunities. He started working for Anderson Dairy that year and became the production manager in 1971.
Person
Gibson, Fred, 1927-
Fred Gibson was born on May 24, 1927 in Golden, Colorado. He studied Japanese at Yale University and he went to the University of Nevada, Reno. He ran Pacific Engineering and Production Company of Nevada and was a trustee director of the Nevada Development Authority. He was very involved in the development of the University of Nevada, Las Vegas College of Engineering.
Person
Gilbert, George, 1931-
George Gilbert was born in 1931 in Southgate, California. His family moved to Las Vegas, Nevada in 1936. He was a milk deliveryman for five years before becoming the owner of Gilbert Distributing Company.
Person
Williams, Jeanne Maxwell
Jeanne Maxwell Williams was born August 25, 1924 in Scarsdale, New York. Williams married Ed Wilson, son of Charles Wilson, President of General Motors, and left for Las Vegas, Nevada in 1965. Williams worked at The Summa Corporation as a Women’s Events Coordinator. She kept the wives of golfers busy with luncheons featuring speakers like Ann Landers, and David Frost. But soon Williams married Jack Kent Cooke, one-time owner of the Los Angeles Lakers. She moved with him to Virginia where her art career dwindled.
Person
Provance, Will
Will Provance was born in Mississippi and grew up mostly in St. Louis, Missouri, where he earned his undergraduate degree at the University of Missouri before earning a Master’s in Business Administration from Shiller University. Provance attended the University of Nevada, Las Vegas where he earned a Master of Science in Hotel Administration. He started in the gaming industry as a pool manager at Sunset Station, and became slot analyst before entering Station Casinos’ management development program.
Person
Schoeman, Thomas J.
Thomas J. Schoeman was born May 18, 1949 in Brooklyn, New York, and was the first of his four siblings to graduate high school and attend college. Schoeman attended Nassau Community College and then transferred to the University of New Mexico in the early 1970s, from which he graduated in 1974. After spending his first five years out of college working as an architect in New Mexico, Schoeman received a job offer from Jack Miller and Associates (later, JMA Studio) and moved to Las Vegas, Nevada, in 1979.
Person
Sheldon, Connie Hill
Connie Hill Sheldon was born November 16, 1944 in Oklahoma and spent her early years in southern California before moving to Las Vegas, Nevada in 1956 with her family. In Las Vegas, Sheldon and her siblings attended Sunrise Acres Elementary School before going to Rancho High School, and the family was active with Homesite Baptist Church. While she was at Rancho High, Sheldon worked at the Huntridge Theater, and she continued working there after she graduated. In 1968, Sheldon married fellow Rancho Class of 1962 classmate, Clyde, in Goldfield, Nevada.
Person
Smith, Gordon W.
Gordon Smith was born November 25, 1943 in Tropic, Utah. His family moved to Hawthorne, Nevada, in 1947. In 1955 he and his family moved to Las Vegas, Nevada. Smith went to Rancho High School. After high school, he went to barbering college and then was drafted and was a medic in the United States Army taking care of soldiers who had been critically wounded in the Vietnam War. After he got out of the Army, Smith opened a McDonalds and then worked full time as a barber.
Person
Engel, Jerry, 1930-
Jerry Engel was born in 1930 in New Jersey and spent most of his early life in Long Beach, New York until the family moved westward to Los Angeles in 1945. Jerry is a retired Certified Public Accountant and loves to talk about the history of Las Vegas that he observed since arriving in 1953. That was the year that he moved to Las Vegas to join his older brothers, Morris and Phil, in their accounting firm. Their major client at the time was Desert Inn.
Person
Shaw, Mary M.
Mary Martell Shaw called Central America home for the first 19 years of her life. Because of misrouted luggage, she met her husband, Rollin H. Shaw, a civil engineer, at a time in when his atomic energy career was taking off. In October of 1943, they married in Costa Rica and for the next two decades traveled the country: Hawaii to California to Panama—wherever a project required Ronnie’s engineering skills. Shaw supported her husband every step of the way, with every new location.
Person