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Kim Vilt grew up in Woodland Hills, CA; lived an outdoor life in rural San Fernando Valley and was the oldest of four children. Graduated from CSUMB. Served with the Peace Corps in Bulgaria and met husband James J. Vilt there. Eventually Kim moved to Las Vegas and talks about changes to Las Vegas and to the John S. Park community. Kim Vilt has lived in the John S. Park Neighborhood for ten years and plans to stay there as long as she and her husband live in Las Vegas. Their house was built in 1946.
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At age 95, Marian Wojciechowski recalls his personal story of being born a region called called Poland in 1914, just as World War I was beginning. This narrative gives special attention to his Polish background at a time when the country did not technically exist, and their language was forbidden. By the late 1930s and the dawning of World War II, Marian is a young man struggling to understand what is transpiring, but knowing that he must participate in the Polish underground resistance against the Germans His activism gets him arrested and sentenced to Auschwitz as a non-Jew and without penalty of death. He recalls the Gestapo beatings which have left him without feeling in his fingers and a loss of hearing. He shares historical perspectives of the war era, agricultural coops, goal of Germans to sell Jews to the United States and other countries, and a story about a woman who helped save 2500 Jewish children during war.
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Hailing from Indiana and California, Donna Guiffre Martin and Tom Martin came to Las Vegas in the early 1950s as their parents sought new opportunities. Donna's father, Gus Guiffre, quickly established himself as a local television personality, while Tom's father took on a variety of entrepreneurial opportunities. Like many of the young people in Las Vegas, Donna and Tom enjoyed riding around town; horse-back riding; football games; Helldorado - and, of course, Rancho High School. This interview covers both Donna and Tom's early years before their moves to Las Vegas, as well as their memories of first homes, childhood experiences, early adulthood and their current lives.
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Raya was born in Tel-Aviv, Israel on July 8, 1935 to Edith and Gerhard Munzner. Her Mother was the daughter of Elsa and David Flachs from Berlin, Germany and her father was the son of Rachel and Zvi Munzner from Mannheim, Germany. Raya's father was jailed in 1931 as a 23 year old attorney, for being "out of the ordinary intelligent, and, therefore, highly dangerous," he was accused of being a communist because he defended social welfare cases. On the day of his release, he fled Germany, crossing the border overnight into Czechoslovakia and onward to Paris to reunite with his then fiancee (Raya's mother) and await immigration papers to the then Palestine, today's Israel. Raya's parents married upon their arrival in Jerusalem and settled in Tel Aviv in 1933. Raya's father obtained his doctorate in Economics and Law at the University of Heidelberg, Germany. Upon arrival in Israel, he got a job counting the out-of-circulation money in the basement of "Bank Yaffet" in Tel Aviv an
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Another member of Rancho High School's first graduating class of 1962, Allin Chandler charted a course that took him from school football to a distinguished career as a teacher, principal, and Executive Director for the Clark County Association of School Administrators. Allin moved to Las Vegas from Texarkana, Texas with his mother in 1958, joining his father who was serving in the Air Force and stationed at Nellis AFB. Starting 9th grade at J.D. Smith Junior High and continuing on to Rancho the following year. Still actively involved in school athletics, Allin quickly discovered his talent and love for maths and science and eventually earned his degree in math and education. The stories Allin shares in this interview paint a vivid picture of how an intelligent and motivated young man can succeed - and how the class-free world of Las Vegas in the 1950s and 60s offered opportunities that he would never have had in class-conscious world of the South.
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Craig Palacios was born on November 1, 1971 and grew up in the Paradise Palms neighborhood in Las Vegas, Nevada. His family lived close to him and he remembers playing with his relatives up and down the Maryland Parkway Corridor. His first job was in construction where he poured and finished concrete. His talents for design became apparent and he began a new job as a swimming pool designer. Craig’s first company was a concrete company, but he later had to close its doors. After that, Craig decided to attend college and graduated with degrees in Architecture and Art History from UNLV in 2005. He worked for YWS Architecture for a few years before opening his own studio in 2011. Since then, BunnyFish Studio has worked on the Downtown Project and the Maryland Parkway Project.
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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
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