In this interview, Walter Weiss discusses how Judaism and boxing kept him out of trouble in his youth. Weiss grew up in the Boston area, and started boxing as a teenager. Weiss talks about his boxing training, becoming a runner for a bookmaker, and coming to Las Vegas in the 1950s to be a bookmaker for the Stardust Hotel, and working the slot machine floor. He had several different jobs in various casinos, and discusses different people involved in the gaming industry in Las Vegas.
Walter Weiss life story begins in a Malden, Massachusetts during the Great Depression. His early background was a blend of observant Judaism, secularism, and the effects of the era. He was a troubled youth whose older brother encouraged him to join him in boxing. As Walter explains: I was a wild kid and ... boxing saved my life. His aptitude for boxing led him to be a sparring partner in New York City's famous Spillman Gym. There he met and worked out with some of the greatest fighters of the era, including Rocky Marciano. He recalls how he turned professional while attending the University of Miami and how he first came to Las Vegas in 1958 to escape his personal troubles and find work with a local bookmaker. Thus began his diverse employment history in the casino industry. He details his various positions and the cast of famous and infamous characters of the times. For six years he return to New York and worked as a Wall Street broker before arriving back in Las Vegas in 1973. He talks about his property ownership, lobbying for an amendment to Senate Bill 208, his personal religious changes and a sundry of observations about the changes that occurred as the state took over gaming.
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Histories that are distinctly localized in subject matter or source materials, focusing on specific neighborhoods, communities, counties, or other specific subdivisions of larger geopolitical bodies.
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Interview with Nafeesa Sallee by John Grygo, March 21, 2013. Sallee moved to Las Vegas from Cleveland in 1978 and entered into a 34-year banking career from which she retired in 2013.
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Interview transcript with Johnny Griffin by Claytee D. White, September 13, 2010. Griffin grew up in Mississippi where he held a job as a golf caddy. He earned a golf scholarship to Jackson State University, and moved to Las Vegas in 1982. He became involved in Municipal Golf Course and the Tiger Woods Foundation.
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Transcript of interview with Ricki Y. Barlow by Claytee D. White, April 10, 2013. Barlow is a native of Las Vegas, attended Vo-Tech High School and served as student body president. He is a graduate of UNLV, and in 2007 was elected as Las Vegas City Councilman for Ward 5.
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Trish Geran is too busy to pigeonhole herself into one role. The activist, author, daughter, engineer, filmmaker, public speaker, and student was born and raised in Las Vegas’s Westside community as the fifth and youngest child of Hazel and Johnus Geran. She and her sister attended Catholic elementary school and Bishop Gorman High School, and her brothers went to Madison Elementary School, Roy W. Martin Junior High School, and Las Vegas High School. In this interview Trish discusses the feelings of not belonging that shaped her world view: she was different from her white, wealthy schoolmates, and as a private school student she was different from her neighbors. She found balance through excelling in sports, drill team, and academics. After graduating from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV) and cashing in an IRA to work on Barak Obama’s presidential campaign, Trish found out from her mother that the City of Las Vegas was going to close F Street, main link between the Westside
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Audio clip from interview with Jocelyn Oats on November 20, 2012. In the clip, Jocelyn talks about the beginnings of Nevada Partners, and her work with the teenaged youth of Las Vegas in the 1990s.
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