Oral history interview with Margaret Ostler Stout-Hall conducted by Claytee D. White on August 11, 2014 for the West Charleston Neighborhoods--an Oral History Project of Ward 1. Stout-Hall discusses growing up in Las Vegas, Nevada’s Rancho Circle neighborhood, attending Las Vegas High School, and becoming a Rhythmette. She also talks about working at the El Portal Theatre, dancing at the Wildcat Lair, and working for Harry Reid later in life.
Description given with photo: "Howard Hughes sits with his witnesses at Senate War Invest. Hearing. 1st row (l to r): Glen Odekirk & Thomas Slack; 2nd row (l to r): E. A. Peterman, Richard (?), & Howard Hughes; 3rd row (l to r): Edward Schwartz, John Parkinson, & John R. (?)."
From the Sister Klaryta Antoszewska Photograph Collection (PH-00352). From Slides #1550 through 1557. Newspaper title text: “U.S. Warns Soviets It May Drop Curb on Atomic Tests.”.
The official portrait painting of Howard Hughes. In 1998, Russ Stevenson presented the painting, along with many of his other Hughes Airwest files and memoirs, to the Special Collections Library of the University of Texas at Dallas.
Margaret Ostler Stout-Hall’s personality shines in this interview, in which she discusses growing up in Las Vegas’s Rancho Circle. She moved to Las Vegas with her family in 1951, when she was twelve and her father bought Las Vegas’s Seven-Up Bottling Company. She immediately found friends at John S. Park Elementary School and later at Las Vegas High School, where she became a Rhythmette. Margaret describes her Rancho Circle neighborhood, dragging Fremont Street, working at the El Portal Theater, and dancing at the Wildcat Lair. As a Rhythmette, she traveled to New York and Philadelphia to perform on the “Ed Sullivan Show” and the Elks National Convention. Stout-Hall credits Rhythmette advisor, Evelyn Stuckey, for developing a sense of confidence, belonging, and responsibility in the young women she led. It was this confidence that enabled Margaret to go to work for Harry Reid after she suffered a tragic loss. Former Rhythmettes honored Stuckey by lobbying the Clark County School District to name a school after their former mentor; the school opened in 2010.