Wendy Starkweather recalls her move to Las Vegas on a hot summer day in 1978. Her husband, Peter L. Starkweather had accepted a position to teach biology, but nothing had prepaied her for desert weather in July. She was a small town girl, born and raised in rural Ogdensburg, New York. She attended Skidmore College in Saratoga Springs, NY and became a teacher and librarian in New Hampshire Getting a job at UNLV's library took some time, but finally in 1985, she was offered the position of head of references. From that point on, there was only looking forward for Wendy. She was to be an active member of the library staff until her retirement in 2010. During her over two decades at UNLV she worked under the leadership of six deans. She was an vigorous voice in the development of services, impacting circulation, interlibrary loans and non-book services that included media and instruction. In addition, she was here during a momentous period as the future Lied Library was being fu

JoNell Thomas grew up in a large Utah family, went to Utah State and law school at University of Utah. She moved to Nevada in 1992; first as with the Nevada Supreme Court and then as a staff attorney with a Las Vegas firm, and currently is an attorney with the Clark County Special Public Defender's office. She and her husband, Billy Logan and their twin daughters have lived in the John S. Park Neighborhood since 2001. Their residence was constructed in 1956 on a large corner lot with lots of trees and a fifty-year-old swimming pool. JoNell offers her observations on a variety of JSP events: Stratosphere's failed rollercoaster across the Strip idea; the proposed high-rise complexes; the Monorail lack of convenience to locals; effects of dropping home prices and downturn of economy; the homeless population and closing of Circle Park. She helped create the early online community called the Downtown Neighbors website which provided information regarding , part activist, part pra