Known throughout the Las Vegas community as Rabbi Mendy, Mendy Harlig is a leader of the Chabad in Las Vegas, which was introduced to the valley in 1990 by his brother Rabbi Shea Harlig. Since his youth spent growing up in the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn, where he was surrounded by Hasidic Jews, Rabbi Mendy seemed destined to become a Chabad rabbi. During the early 1990s he often visited Las Vegas and assisted his brother at the Chabad of Southern Nevada. Then in 1997 he met and married Chaya Harlig and the couple permanently relocated to the valley to be the spiritual leaders of the Chabad of Green Valley. As their family grew, so did their importance to the Chabad movement in Las Vegas. During this interview, Rabbi Mendy touches upon the nature of Chabad teachings and observance in the so-called “Sin City” persona of Las Vegas. He also shares about his participation in the Las Vegas Metro Chaplaincy program. He particularly reflective of his active role immediately after of the horror of the October 1 mass casualty at the Route 91 country music festival and his perspectives afterwards.

Sgt. Steve Riback is a Detective Sergeant for the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department. He has been with the police force for nearly twenty years. On the night of the Route 91 Harvest festival shooting, he had just returned home shortly after 10pm. He had been on an overtime assignment at the Golden Knights hockey game at the T-Mobile prior to the shooting. When he was abruptly awaken by a call from his lieutenant, he was oblivious to the time and immediately rushed into action—contacted his squad members and sped to his station in northwest part of the city. He reflects on his overwhelming pride of the police that day, recalling what he heard on his police radio, seeing the rush of police cars being dispatched, and watching a body camera video later. Sgt. Riback’s squad was assigned to Spring Valley Hospital where they worked tirelessly to identify victims, both injured and deceased. His reflections stir the image of medical professionals and police officers urgently fusing together to handle the situation at hand. Riback shares a myriad of emotions, talks about the options available for officers to deal with their personal trauma, and how he explained to his eight-year-old why Daddy was crying. Riback is also known as the Kosher Cop and has authored a book, My Journey Home, about becoming an observant Orthodox Jewish officer and his struggle for the right to wear his beard and a yarmulke while on duty.

Kim Bird's family moved to Las Vegas in 1955 when she was twelve years old. Pam Fogliasso arrived in 1954 with her family in 1954, when she was ten. Kim married and had a son and a daughter; she lives in Las Vegas. Pam married, had two children, and lives in Parumph, Nevada. Though Kim and Pam moved here in the mid-1950s, they had family members who had lived in Southern Nevada and worked on building Hoover Dam - Kim's grandfather and Pam's great-uncle. Both women remember growing up in a Las Vegas that was run by the mob and safe for teenagers; meeting friends in local hangouts such as the Blue Onion and attending sock hops, babysitting, and cruising down Fremont Street. They attended high school with black students but were also aware of the segregation that existed on the Strip. This interview focuses on Kim and Pam's experiences growing up in Las Vegas, and on their teenaged years attending Rancho High School.

Joyce Moore's family moved to Las Vegas from Chicago in 1953, when she was eight years old. She attended Rancho High School, married and had three daughters, and currently lives in Las Vegas. Joyce's father was in the gaming industry and her mother was a nurse. Growing up in Las Vegas meant going to shows with her mother, spending summer days in the pool at the Showboat Hotel, and riding horses to the Last Frontier. While a teenager at Rancho High school, Joyce worked at several movie theaters including the Huntridge, went to school dances and marched in the Hellodorado Parade. After her divorce, Joyce returned to work to support herself and her children, first at the Daily Fax then later on the Strip at the Aladdin and Circus, Circus doing a variety of office and accounting jobs. As a lark she and a friend applied to work as cocktail waitresses at the MGM; she was hired and spent the next five years in a job that was by turns interesting, exhausting, frustrating and fun. This interview covers several periods of Joyce's life - her childhood, teen years, and early adult life - and what it was like to grow up, live and work in Las Vegas in from the mid-1950s until the mid-1970s.

Florence McClure came to Las Vegas later in her life, but the state felt her presence and the community her contributions as if she were a native daughter. Introduced to the League of Women Voters in 1967, McClure met her political mentor Jean Ford and learned how to practice the core elements of democracy. She put those tools to work in a number of ways, however her participation in the creation of the Rape Crises Center and her advocacy for locating the women’s prison near Las Vegas are two of her long-lasting efforts. Florence Alberta Schilling was born in southern Illinois where she enjoyed the security of a tight-knit family and the independence to test her abilities growing up. She graduated from high school and attended the MacMurray College for Women at Jacksonville. With the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, she began a series of jobs working for the war effort. She moved to Ypsilanti, Michigan with a girlfriend to work at the Willow Run Army Airbase and then moved to Miami, Florida where she worked for the Provost Marshall in the Security and Intelligence Division. She met her husband, James McClure, at the time and they married in 1945. During the next several years, they raised a family and moved around the country and to Japan with the military. McClure came to Las Vegas in 1966 as part of her work in the hotel industry which she engaged in after her husband’s retirement from the military. She had worked in California and Miami Beach, but it was Burton Cohen in Los Angeles who invited her to join him in a move to Las Vegas to build the new Frontier Hotel and Casino. Following the completion of the Frontier, she moved to the Desert Inn with Cohen in 1967 and worked as the executive office manager. After a few years, she decided to leave the industry and complete her college education. She graduated from UNLV in 1971with a BA in Sociology with an emphasis on criminology. She was 50 years old. McClure had been a member of the League of Women Voters for a few years at that point and had learned the political process from Jean Ford and workshops on lobbying. She had numerous skills that were waiting to be tapped when she attended an informational meeting on the incidence of rape in the Las Vegas valley. From that meeting, a small group of individuals, including McClure, began the organization Community Action Against Rape (later renamed the Rape Crisis Center) in 1973. It was the first agency in the area devoted to serving individuals who had been assaulted and changing the laws on rape. The organization’s first office was set up in McClure’s home. Over the next decade, she worked to change attitudes and reshape policy by constantly raising the issues of sexual assault with police officers, emergency room doctors, judges, and legislators. Her role as an advocate took her into hospital emergency rooms and courtrooms to assist victims. It also took her to the state legislator to lobby repeatedly for a change in laws. During this period, journalist Jan Seagrave gave McClure the nickname “Hurricane Florence” - a fitting moniker that captured the force with which McClure attacked the issue. As a result of her efforts and those of the people with whom she worked, we now 1) recognize rape as a crime of assault; 2) forbid the sexual history of a rape victim from being used against her in court; and 3) recognize marital rape. In addition to learning about Florence McClure’s activities, the reader of this interview will gain information on the role of civic organizations like the League of Women Voters in engaging the voluntary efforts of women in the post-war years.

Interviewed by Irene Rostine. Hazel Hedges moved from Kansas City to Las Vegas with her husband and son in 1952. She worked briefly as a waitress in the dining room at the Thunderbird and then became a stay at home mom until her son was in junior high. Then after she went to real estate school, she went to work in commercial real estate at Bond Realty. After that, she passed her brokers exam and transferred to Parkway Realty where she sold land. Her primary success in real estate came from selling houses and investing in land and residential properties personally. After leaving Parkway Realty, Hazel went to work for the real estate office Deshoor, Fair, and Davis, which she eventually bought and renamed Southside Realty. Eventually her son joined her, and they operated Hedges and Wade Realty with two offices, one on each side of town. Hazel also did volunteer work including the Assistance League Las Vegas' Operation School Bell Program, which provides clothing for area school children in need.

On March 1, 1979, John L. Bennett interviewed Dan Hill (born May 20, 1914 in Illinois) in his home at 2130 Walnut Road, Las Vegas, Nevada, about his memory of Southern Nevada. In addition to the collector and informant, there is an unidentified woman present during the interview. Hill explains that he originally came to Nevada in search of work. He briefly moved to Europe during the First World War where he served in the Army; at the end of the war, Hill returns to Las Vegas to work at the Nevada Test Site. Hill then goes in-depth about his experience as a worker at the Nevada Test Site and different mining sites that he had also worked at. The two briefly discuss the different sheriffs that had been in charge of Las Vegas, and how many people came to Las Vegas to work at the Henderson Magnesium Plant and Hoover Dam in addition to the Nevada Test Site.