In the signature line of Harry Fagel?s emails is a reads: Be the light in dark spaces. This illumines the person that Harry is both as a police officer and a poet in Las Vegas. Harry is native Las Vegan, who has served the community with the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department for nearly 30 years. He currently is a police lieutenant serving in Laughlin, Nevada. In addition, Fagel is a respected poet, writing both for the public and on commission. He performs in the local poetry scene. He also has showcased his poetry in two published books, released an album, and is a recipient of the Hilliard Endowment Grant from the University Nevada, Reno. Fagel is a graduate of the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, and currently lives in Henderson with his wife, Leilani and two sons, Sam and Jake. In this interview, Fagel discusses his family background, how his grandparents came to live in Las Vegas in the 1950s, as well as his relationships with both his mother and father. He recalls his early jobs which included working for his cousin Freddie Glusman?s restaurant Piero?s and for Circus Circus-long before becoming a policeman. His involvement with the Jewish community started young and he shares how it has evolved over the decades. In addition, Fagel reflects upon his career as a law enforcement officer, the progressiveness of the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department, and changes in relations between the police and communities, both locally and nationally. Lastly, Fagel talks in detail about his poetry, its dominant themes, and the local poetry scene.

In this interview, Mimi Katz discusses growing up in the Boston area and her schooling, and moving to Washington, D.C. working as a physiotherapist. She returned to Boston and met her husband, and she talks about moving to Las Vegas and adjusting to life here. They became involved at Temple Beth Sholom, and Mimi worked as a conventions coordinator at the Sands and the Sahara. She discusses moving around in Las Vegas from an apartment to a house in the John S. Park neighborhood, working for the Jewish Federation, and helping to develop the Holocaust education program with Edythe Katz, conducting oral history interviews with survivors. She continued working at the Convention Center in the 1980s, and is involved in the Lou Ruvo Center.

Everyone knows her as Mimi. She was born Miriam Green to immigrant parents in Boston, Massachusetts, in 1926. As a youngster she danced, excelled at school and enjoyed an abundance of sports. To pay for her higher education at Massachusetts School of Physiotherapy she worked at Raytheon Manufacturing. In 1957 she married George Katz who swept her away to their honeymoon in Las Vegas. It's a story that she loves to recall-they never left. She sent for her things and energetically settled in to her new hometown and marriage. Mimi found employment with the Clark County School District, began having children (three daughters), and making fast new friends. Many of these friends were from the founding days of Temple Beth Sholom, which roots her to the history of the local Jewish community. In addition, for a decade she worked in community relations for the Jewish Federation. She valued community activism and volunteered over the years for many organizations; such as Easter Seals, Jewish War Veterans, Parent Teachers Association and the Lou Ruvo Center for Brain Health, and many more organizations over the subsequent decades.

Bud Weil worked as a disc jockey in Mexico after serving in the military during World War II. In 1947, he moved to Las Vegas to work at KLAS but after two days he was job hunting. His search landed him at KENO, a radio station owned by Max and Laura Belle Kelch. His was an interview show that afforded him entree to stars performing in town. The list of his favorite interviews includes Sophie Tucker, Sammy Davis, Jack Benny, The Mills Brother, Rosemary Clooney, Leno Home, Joey Lewis and many others. In 1955, he became restless, left the career in broadcasting, and joined Max Kelch as a partner in a new venture for Las Vegas - Musak. This enterprise took him to the doors of every business in town and shortly, he knew everybody. He uses that knowledge in this interview to talk about all aspects of life as the town grew over the years. Today he is a senior statesman of our town, enjoying everything about Las Vegas except the traffic.

Oral history interview with Emmanuel Ortega conducted by Monserrath Hernandez, Maribel Estrada Calderon, Elsa Lopez, Barbara Tabach, and Laurents Bañuelos Benitez on 2019 for the Latinx Voices of Southern Nevada Oral History Project. Emmanuel Ortega was born in Artesia, California and was raised in Ciudad Juárez, Mexico before moving to El Paso, Texas with his family at the age of thirteen. In 1998 his family relocated once again from El Paso to Las Vegas, Nevada where his father joined the Carpenters Union. They settled in Green Valley and he began attending a hybrid community college and high school program allowing him to obtain college credits. He continued at the College of Southern Nevada for two more years where he was a photography major and later transferred to the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV) where he studied art history. He moved back to Las Vegas in 2011 where he began teaching at UNLV and received a PhD in Ibero-American colonial art history from the University of New Mexico in 2017. He is the co-host of the podcast "Latinos Who Lunch" where hosts discuss pop culture, art, and issues of race, sex, and gender in the Latinx community.