Lawrence Canarelli was born in Roseburg, Oregon shortly after World War II. His family had no money and lived in a tent on the Umpqua River, foraging and living day-to-day. After their tent and everything they owned burned down, Canarelli’s family moved to various logging camps through Oregon and California. His father quit his job and unexpectedly left the family, leaving the 21-year old mother no choice but to put Canarelli and his three siblings in a Pentecostal orphanage.

Bruce Isaacson was born in 1956 in Castro Valley, California and spent his childhood in Oakland, California. Isaacson became the first poet laureate of Clark County (Nevada) in June 2015. He was born in Castro Valley, California to Betty Griffin and Bernard Isaacson, and spent his childhood in Oakland. He received his bachelor’s degree from Claremont McKenna College with majors in economics as well as drama, and continued studying for his Masters of Business Administration at Dartmouth College.

Joseph Theodor LaVoie was a police officer and civic activist in Las Vegas, Nevada. He was born in St. Boniface, Canada on March 28, 1916. Around 1920, the family moved to Los Angeles, California. In 1939, LaVoie moved to Las Vegas, Nevada, and began work at the Rheem Manufacturing Company in Henderson. In 1946, LaVoie joined the City of Las Vegas Police Department as a motorcycle officer where he worked as a police officer for twenty years, retiring as a sergeant in 1966.

Jack Leavitt was a land surveyor, engineer, and real estate developer in Southern Nevada who worked mainly in Las Vegas, Nevada. Leavitt was born on March 9, 1924 in Bunkerville, Nevada to Mike and Estella Leavitt. Leavitt graduated from Las Vegas High School in 1942 and attended the Heald Engineering College in San Francisco, California. After leaving college, Leavitt acquired work from an engineering firm in Nevada, but later quit to work for the Pioneer Title Insurance and Trust Company in Las Vegas, Nevada, where he was employed for ten years.

Jazz musician and restaurateur Gene Nakanishi is a second-generation native-born Las Vegan. In the 1920s, Gene's paternal grandfather worked on the Union Pacific railroad between what is now Zyzzx, California, and Las Vegas. After his oldest child died from lack of available medical care, the elder Nakanishi moved his family to Las Vegas and commuted to his work site. During WWII, when Gene's father was 17, the Nakanishi family was interned at the Heart Mountain War Relocation Center, near Cody, Wyoming.