After Irene Porter's father's retirement from the Air Force, the family moved to Las Vegas where her aunt and uncle were involved in the gaming industry. After she married, she and her husband Dick moved to Boston. They moved back to Las Vegas due to the bad economy in Boston. Irene worked for the Clark County Planning Department as a secretary but moved up to doing the work of the director, but without the title nor the pay of that position, so she went to work in the planning department of the city of North Las Vegas and became its director of planning.
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Felicia Florine Campbell is an English professor at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV). As of 2018, she is the longest serving faculty member at UNLV.
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Helen (Collins) Morelli was born in 1905 the oldest of nine children born to Elizabeth McCann and James P. Collins. Her father was an New York Police Department officer and suffered a heart attack, which widowed her mother. Helen helped her mother raise her siblings as both her mother and her uncle (who moved in after her father's death) worked outside of the home to support the family.
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Stan Armstrong is an African American and Choctaw filmmaker and founder of Desert Rose Productions. Armstrong was born in 1954 in San Francisco, California and moved to Las Vegas, Nevada with his parents in 1955. Armstrong attended Rancho High School and the race riots of the 1970s which he created a documentary titled, The Rancho High School Race Riots. Armstrong graduated from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas in 1995 with a degree in Communications and Film History.
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At the time of this oral history, Meyer Lansky II had found a sentimental attachment to his namesake, Meyer Lansky, his grandfather. Though it was considered against Eastern European Jewish tradition, Meyer II’s parents had named him after the grandfather.
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In pop culture, Emmanuel Ortega is recognized as Babelito from Latinos Who Lunch, a podcast that he co-hosts with Justin Favela AKA FavyFav. Academically, he is known as Dr. Ortega, PhD, Marilynn Thomas Scholar in Art of the Spanish Americas at University of Illinois Chicago.
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Shirley Edmond and Althia Taylor grew up on Jackson Avenue where their parents owned Johnson's Malt Shop. Both women worked in the postal service until their retirements; Shirley worked for 36 years and Althia for 32 years. Shirley went into management but Althia loved mail delivery even after 14 dog bites. Mackie Edmond worked for the Stardust and interacted with MOB figures like Frank Rosenthal. He explains why people thought that era was better than corporate ownership.
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John Fildes, MD, FACS, FCCM, FPCS (Hon) is the Professor and Inaugural Chair of the Department of Surgery at the Kirk Kerkorian School of Medicine at the University of Nevada Las Vegas. In addition, he was the Interim Associate Dean for External Affairs, serving from September 2019 through April 2020.
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Richard Francis or Dick Franco, his stage name, by which he is more commonly known, has been juggling for over 50 years, having learned the art while he was still in high school. Taught by prominent juggling legends in Vaudeville and Las Vegas, Franco would go on to perform all over the world. He began as an opening act with the Harlem Globetrotters in the US, but would go on to perform throughout Europe and was featured in variety and production shows in Blackpool, London, Monte Carlo, Berlin, and many other cities.
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