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Interview with James A. Gay III conducted by Joyce M. Wright in 1973. Edited by Elizabeth Nelson Patrick, and transcribed for the project "Black Experience in Southern Nevada, Donated Tapes Collection," James R. Dickinson Library, University of Nevada, Las Vegas, December 1978. Arriving in 1946 from Fordyce, Arkansas, Gay became the first African-American mortician in Las Vegas. He later worked as Assistant Manager of the Sands Hotel and Casino and Union Plaza while serving as an executive board member of the Culinary Union. Instrumental in the Las Vegas community, Gay worked to improved race relations, addressing social, economic, and civic issues. Gay was awarded an honorary degree from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas in 1988.
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Mark Fine was born February 10, 1946 in Cleveland, Ohio, and was raised with a strong Jewish identity. When Fine was in fourth grade, his parents moved the family to Shaker Heights, and again moved to Arizona during his senior of high school. Upon graduation, Fine enrolled at the University of Arizona and became a member of the Zeta Beta Tau fraternity. He graduated in 1964 with a degree in business administration with an emphasis in real estate.
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Nevada businessman and Republican politician Jacob "Chic" Hecht (1928-2006) was elected to the U.S. Senate in November 1982. As a senator, he used quiet diplomacy skills to help Soviet Jews gain permission to emigrate. During the Korean War, Hecht served as a counterintelligence agent in Berlin. After the war he moved to Las Vegas, Nevada and operated several businesses. Hecht also represented Clark County in the Nevada State Senate for eight years.
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Civil rights leader James B. McMillan was born in 1917 in Aberdeen, Mississippi and moved to Michigan in 1931 with his family. He finished his high school education in Hamtramck, Michigan where he was the first African-American captain of the football and track teams. In 1936, he opted to enroll at the University of Detroit rather than the segregated University of Michigan. After graduation, he moved to Nashville, Tennessee to attend Meharry Medical College School of Dentistry.
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Richard “Dick” J. Ronzone (1917-1989) was active in the local politics and civic affairs of Las Vegas, Nevada, serving as a Clark County Commissioner, a Nevada State Assemblyman, and a member of the University Board of Regents. He inherited and managed his family's retail store which dated back to the early 1900s. Ronzone also helped develop the Municipal Golf Course and was active in the Elks Lodge, Rotary Club, Veterans Of Foreign Wars, Reserve Officers Association, and the Boulder Dam Area Council of the Boy Scouts of America.
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Richard "Dick" Blackburn Taylor was a prominent businessman in Las Vegas, Nevada and amateur historian of Southern Nevada. Taylor was born on January 31, 1929 in Quincy, Illinois and grew up in Glendale, California. After graduating high school in 1947, he attended Washington and Lee University, the University of Southern California, and the University of Hawaii. He served in the 4th Infantry Division of the United States Army in Germany during the occupation following WWII. In 1957, he married Charlene Flora Belknap and they had four children.
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The University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV) Faculty Publications (1950-2008) is comprised of reports, scholarly journal articles, and books that were written by UNLV faculty and staff. Publications also include book reviews and conference presentations. Subjects include biology, chemistry, English, and sociology.
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