This is Dennis McBride, today is Wednesday, March 11,1998 and I'm talking with John Warfel at Christ Church Episcopal who 's going to be leaving Las Vegas permanently March 16, so I'm very grateful that he made some time for me today. We're going to be talking about Christ Church, about Dignity and their experience here, and about Mr. Warfel himself.

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.”

In this oral history, Gary explains how the family came to live in the United States?Cleveland and Los Angeles. In 1957, he married Noreen and they eventually came to live in Las Vegas where Gary worked for Sears selling washing machines, had a repair business and an importing business with Noreen. Gary was an entrepreneurial soul and inventive much like his father. He owns three patents.

On August 25, 1931, Augusta and Herman Sternberg welcomed their second child, Gerd (aka Gary), into the world of Cuxhaven, Germany. Augusta was a devout Christian of Polish ancestry who had fled Russian persecution. Herman was a German-born Jew salesman and inventor. The couple fell in love and had two children, Gary and Ruth who was a year and half older. By 1938, German politics were targeting Jews and Herman was ripped away from his Christian wife and children and sent to a concentration camp. Fate and friendship rescued Herman with the option to go to China. And so begins the history of the Sternberg family and how they all would eventually live together during World War II in the confines of a Jewish ghetto in Hongkew, China from May 1939 to July 1948. Gary had an extraordinary career as a dealer. He was not the stereotypical young dealer-to-be: he was in his 40s when he signed up for the Michael Gaughn Dealing School in the mid-1970s. Gary?s charming wit and ease of making friends soon gained him a position at El Cortez and then Caesars Palace. It was the same personality that would sustain his stellar thirty-one year career at Caesars. He was employed there from April 1974 until his retirement May 8, 2005. Though Jewish tradition would identify Gary as Christian, he self-identified as Jewish, officially converted and has been an active member of the Jewish community. Among his anecdotes-and he has many-is one about securing a $30,000 donation from Frank Sinatra and Jilly Rizzo for Congregation Ner Tamid.

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.

Oral history interview with Gene Noboru Nakanishi conducted by Ayrton Yamaguchi, Cecilia Winchell, and Stefani Evans on April 2, 2021 for Reflections: The Las Vegas Asian American and Pacific Islander Oral History Project. Gene Nakanishi shares his detailed family history from both his father's and his mother's families. He discusses his paternal grandfather's work on the Union Pacific Railroad, the family's internment in Wyoming during World War II, and his father's release from the camp by joining the United States Army Signal Corps. Nakanishi also talks of his maternal grandfather who was of the Bushido ("warrior") class in Osaka, Japan, and his grandfather's work with Christian missionaries. He shares details of his mother's restaurant employment in Los Angeles and her opening of Osaka Japanese Bistro in Las Vegas in 1969. Nakanishi also talks about being born and raised in Las Vegas, his musical schooling at Berklee College of Music in Boston, and his graduate education at Harvard University. He discusses his work as a band teacher for the Clark County School District, his involvement in the Idyllwild Arts Summer Program band camp, and his interests in jazz music.

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