From the Roosevelt Fitzgerald Professional Papers (MS-01082) -- Unpublished manuscripts file. Presented at 5th Annual West Coast Meeting of National Social Science Association, Scottsdale, Arizona.

Commencement program from University of Nevada, Las Vegas Commencement Programs and Graduation Lists (UA-00115).

In 1948 in Las Vegas, Nevada, a camera-girl-turned-cocktail-waitress and a casino credit manager welcomed the birth of their son, Darrin Bush. After attaining his education at St. Joseph’s Catholic School and Bishop Gorman High School, Bush earned his Bachelor’s degree in journalism at the University of Nevada, Reno. Bush credits his love for photography to his mother’s influence and his study of journalism. Bush’s first job after college as a room service waiter at the Sahara Hotel eventually grew into the coveted position of room service swing captain. His swing shift duties included the entertainers' dressing rooms, which meant taking care of the entertainers, getting them what they needed, and stocking their favorite foods and drinks nightly. Through his work, Bush eventually formed close friendships with several celebrities of the day. He enjoyed his work, but he never stopped honing his skills as an amateur photographer. In the mid-1980s, Bush left the Strip to become a professional photographer for the Las Vegas News Bureau. Throughout his News Bureau career, Bush photographed the casino buildings made famous by Las Vegas-the construction and the architecture of Southern Nevada’s gaming palaces-as well as iconic events in Las Vegas history. Darrin retired from the News Bureau in about 2014, but his work recording the building of and events of Las Vegas lives on in the News Bureau archives. He continues to be an avid photographer.

Anna Peltier, owner and founder of ARIA Landscape Architecture in Las Vegas, Nevada, is a transplanted farm girl and a musician. She was born in 1978 on Michigan’s Upper Peninsula in Escanaba, Michigan, where she and two brothers were the second generation to grow up on their parents’ (and formerly their grandparents’) farm. She studied music performance at Michigan State University but after discovering her love of landscape architecture early in her college career, she changed majors and earned her degree in landscape architecture. Moving to Las Vegas in 2007, she first worked for JW Zunino Landscape Architects. While with Zunino she did design work for Lorenzi Park and designed the award-winning Cactus Avenue Interchange. As ARIA’s principal designer, Anna designed Discovery Park in Pahrump, Nevada, and the USA Parkway between Lake Tahoe, California, and Reno, Nevada. In 2013, when Anna opened ARIA, she carefully chose the name of her business. First, for practical reasons she want

One cannot talk about the arts in Southern Nevada without speaking of Patrick Gaffey. The Cincinnati, Ohio, native moved to Las Vegas as a child and has served the local arts community in several roles nearly his entire adult life, retiring soon after this interview as cultural program supervisor for the Clark County Parks & Recreation Department. After earning his Bachelor's and Master's degrees in English at the University of Nevada, Reno, Gaffey married Cynthia Pearson in 1968. In 1981 he began working as a publicist for the Allied Arts Council of Southern Nevada, founding its acclaimed magazine, Arts Alive, and remaining with the organization through its several moves until 1991. In this interview, he speaks to the collaborative nature and long vision of the Southern Nevada arts and architecture community through the founding of Discovery Children's Museum and the Neon Museum and of working with farsighted public entities—the Las Vegas-Clark County Library District, Clark County,

As he reveals in this oral history, Roger Thomas is, among many other things, a son, a father, a brother, a husband, a student, an artist, a visionary, and a philanthropist. As the second son of Peggy and E. Parry Thomas’s five children, Roger was raised a Mormon child of privilege and civic responsibility. The banking family summered in Newport Beach, wintered in Sun Valley, and taught their children by words and deeds that it is not up for debate if you will be involved in your community; the only question is how you will apply your talents and resources to benefit your community. Roger absorbed the lessons well. As a child who struggled in school but excelled in art, he attended his last two years of high school at Interlochen Arts Academy, graduating in 1969, finally finding himself “in an environment where what I did had currency.” From there he earned his BFA from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts Boston and Studio Degree from Tufts University before returning to Las Vegas and eventually joining Steve Wynn’s team in 1981. As Executive Vice President of Design for Wynn Design & Development, he is the man in whom Steve Wynn places his trust to make real at each Wynn property the Wynn design philosophy: aim for a constituency of highly sophisticated, well-traveled, very educated people and give them a reality, a now, that is so fetching, so alluring they wish to be no place else. As he was mentored by his father and Steve Wynn, he too is mentoring those who will follow him. At Wynn, the next generation will carry forward the Wynn idea of evoca-texture, of creating “moments of experiential emotion that result in a memory so captivating and so unique that if you want to repeat that you have to come back.” At home, he collaborates with his daughter on a children’s book that has the potential to become a series; she is the illustrator, while he provides the words. Roger Thomas sat for this interview five days after his father, E. Parry Thomas, passed away in Idaho. Instead of postponing the interview to a more convenient time, Roger kept the appointment and explained, “This is for UNLV. If I’d cancelled my father would have killed me.”