The orientation manual of the Jewish Family Service Agency provides guidance for the duties of the board of directors, the operation of the agency, the organization chart, and staff listing. It also outlines the role of volunteers in the agency.

Lee Cagely, an interior designer and professor who designed some of the most iconic hotels in Las Vegas, Nevada, was born in the Panama Canal Zone on January 31, 1951. His father Leo was a civil engineer for the Panama Canal Company and his mother Charlotte worked as a receptionist. After his father left his job in Panama, Lee spent his childhood in Dallas, Texas; Tulsa, Oklahoma; and Des Moines, Iowa. He started to attend Rice University for architecture, but he chose to leave before completing his degree. He returned to college a few years later and graduated from Iowa State University with a degree in interior design in 1975. While his first California jobs were in restaurant design, he quickly moved on to airports and hotels and moved to Las Vegas in 1990 after associating with Marnell Architecture. Cagley is known for his designs in the Rio All-Suite Hotel and Casino, Ceasars Palace Atlantic City, the Mirage, and the Bellagio Resort & Casino. He is currently Chair of the Iowa State University College of Design and is principal designer for Lee Cagely Design. Here, Cagley explains the importance of keeping the various pieces of the infrastructure of a resort—including landscape architecture, architecture, interior design, all kinds of HVAC [heating, ventilation and air conditioning] concerns, housekeeping, food service, maintenance, etc.-invisible in order to maximize the visitor experience. At the same time he illustrates through several examples how resort design does not happen in a vacuum-it is instead part of a complex team that works together to create the whole. He also describes the challenges the Las Vegas resort industry finds in creating the very best visitor experience for a broad range of groups-from Millennials to their Boomer grandparents and all the generations in between.

Las Vegas has been home to Irene Fisher (1940 - ) since the early 1970s. It felt like home as she connected with the Jewish community, including a dear friendship with Roberta ‘Bobbie’ Gang, who sits with her during this interview. During their oral history conversation, the seemingly common concerns of any mother are touched upon. In their case they were young Jewish women looking out for the well-being of their children. They cover a range of topics, from b’nai mitzvahs to Hanukkah to shopping in those years of raising children, being active in the community, and maintaining career paths. Irene begins by describing her ancestral background that includes parents who emigrated from Poland to New York. In New York she met and married a young doctor who she followed to Nellis Air Force Base. Irene was a recent graduate of Brooklyn Law School. In Las Vegas, though Irene did not practice law here, she immersed herself into civic contributions. Chief among those was with the Clark County

Las Vegas tourists who stop to admire the Mirage volcano, the Bellagio conservatory, the Wynn Las Vegas mountain, the Encore gardens, and the iconic Welcome to Las Vegas sign’s surroundings on the Las Vegas Strip likely do not realize that in each case they have sampled a unique landscape environment conceived by Don Brinkerhoff of Lifescapes International, Newport Beach, California. It is for producing work of this caliber that in 2016 the American Gaming Association selected Brinkerhoff to be the first designer inducted into the Gaming Hall of Fame. In this interview, the Los Angeles native and son of a working-class father and an artist/schoolteacher mother, explains how he spent his youth in an owner-built house in the modest suburb of El Monte, where he tended the family truck garden. Despite earning his degree in ornamental horticulture at California Polytechnic (Cal Poly), Don felt unschooled in the arts because the small school did not teach them. To fill that educational gap, Don took his wife and four children to Europe for two years, where he affiliated with the American Academy in Rome and worked for TAC (The Architects' Collaborative) in Greece among other adventures. The family spent another six months in Hawaii, where the children attended school and Don worked with a local landscape architect. The family’s unusual work, school, and travel experience more than completed Don’s arts education and shaped his world view and that of his daughter Julie in countless ways that came to silently benefit the Las Vegas built environment. Upon returning to California in 1968, Brinkerhoff opened his Orange County office, and Lifescapes International became the “go-to” firm to create water features for condominium projects. This work led to his first hotel-casino project at a Sun City golf course condominium project in South Africa, which in turn led to a telephone call from architect Joel Bergman inviting him to become one of three candidate landscape architects to work with Steve Wynn on what would become The Mirage hotel-casino in Las Vegas. Here, Brinkerhoff speaks to his design philosophy as ninety percent problem-solving and ten percent inspiration even as he describes organizing the signature tree for The Mirage, building the Mirage volcano, taking the idea for Bellagio’s conservatory from the DuPont family’s Longwood Gardens, of creating faux banyans in the Mirage atrium, of creating the model for the Las Vegas Strip median, and of building the mountain on Las Vegas Boulevard in front of Wynn Las Vegas to conceal the Cloud at the Fashion Show Mall. While the fortunes of Lifescapes International continue to grow and succeed worldwide, both Don and Julie credit Steve Wynn and their Las Vegas work: “Las Vegas has totally changed our lives.”

On March 5, 1981, collector Kathy Ricks interviewed Mary Carol Melton (b. April 4th, 1900 in Rockville, Missouri) about her life in Nevada and the development of the United Methodist Church in Las Vegas. Melton speaks about moving to Las Vegas, Nevada because of her husband’s health, her time working with attorney offices and in the Las Vegas Courthouse, and the different homes in which her family lived. Moreover, Melton talks extensively about starting the first Sunday school in North Las Vegas in a garage as well as the church she and her husband built. Melton discusses the programs and minstrels performed in the church, the crafts sold to make money for the church and the organ they purchased. Lastly, Melton talks about going to the Hoover Dam nearly every week to see new developments, her participation in the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR), and watching the above ground atomic tests.

Cathie and Chris Millson moved to Las Vegas with their one-year-old daughter, Nicole, in 1984 following Chris’s completion of a cardio-thoracic anesthesiology fellowship in Atlanta, Georgia. Their two other children were born in Las Vegas. Shortly after they arrived they purchased the Rancho Bel Air house where they currently reside. Cathie talks about raising her children and living in Rancho Bel Air, a gated neighborhood of custom houses, which grew to maturity after the Millsons moved in. Cathie’s memories chronicle the growth of Las Vegas from small town to large city, how a certain segment of the population lived and entertained, and how downtown revitalization has brought young people back to Rancho Bel Air to raise their families.

Ernie Hensley, an accomplished African American musician, was born in Washington D.C. on March 14 1940, the son of Ernest W. Hensley Jr. and Gladys Barbara Hensley. Both of his parents worked for the federal government in the nation's capital. Ernest W. Hensley Jr., was an employee at the Department of Defense and Gladys Barbara Hensley mother, who was an excellent pianist and drum major, ultimately set her musical career aside to provide for her family and worked for the National Labor Relations board. At the age of seven, after finding a saxophone in his grandmother's attic, Ernie embarked on his musical journey. He took lessons at the Modem School of Music in Washington D.C. Eventually acquired proficiency with the clarinet and the flute through long hours of practice. Ernie attended a historically black school, Armstrong High School in D.C., until he was transferred to integrated McKinley High School in 1954 following the Brown v. Board of Education ruling. Ernie recalls his experience in a new desegregated environment. After High School in 1957, Ernie joined the Air Force as a member of the 511th Air Force Band. In 1959 he resettled in France to play saxophone for the Air Force Band. Emie ultimately made a career in the Air Force. He had countless experiences of performing around Europe and in Washington D.C. at places like Constitution Hall. A dream came true when Emie was honored to become a member of the "Airmen of Note," the premier jazz ensemble for the United States Air Force. He retired from the Air Force in 1979. Because of his distinguished career in the United States Air Force, Emie had a number of opportunities once he retired from the military. He moved to Las Vegas in 1979 at age 39 and after living in area for just a few weeks, Emie started working with Johnny Haig 3 nights a week. Shortly thereafter, Emie found a long-term home working with Jimmy Mulidore's group at the Hilton for nearly a decade until 1995. Throughout Ernie's lifetime he has been fortunate to work with notable musicians such as Andy Williams, Sammy Davis Jr., Somers, Juliet Prowse, Steve an Eydie and his good friend Sarah Vaughn. Emie, along with his wife Carolyn, a retired UNLV faculty member, still resides in Las Vegas.