Oral history interview with Chester Davis conducted by Keith Sargent on June 24, 1987 for the Ralph Roske Oral History Project on Early Las Vegas. In his interview Davis discusses his time working as a librarian in the James Dickinson Library at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. Davis focuses his interview on a remodel of the library both at the physical and technological level.
Archival Collection
Oral history interview with Kelly Benavidez conducted by Maribel Estrada Calderón on January 29, 2019 for the Latinx Voices of Southern Nevada Oral History Project. Laurents Bañuelos-Benitez also participates in the questioning. Kelly Benavidez is originally from San Francisco, California. Benavidez arrived in Las Vegas after her family spent two years in Mexico so her and her brother could learn Spanish. Benavidez and her family have remained in Las Vegas ever since. Kelly attended Area Technical Trade School for hotel management, and was then recruited by Mesa State College in Colorado. She currently works for Commissioner Lawrence Weekly. Her list of community involvement is extensive: Las Vegas-Clark County Library District Board, the Fernando Vargas Foundation, Las Vegas Latin Chamber of Commerce, Hispanics in Politics, Latina Network, among others. Subjects discussed include: Las Vegas, Commissioner Weekly, New York New York construction accident, and Spanish Language.
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Oral history interview with Frances Moore conducted by Susan Kendall on March 30, 1977 for the Ralph Roske Oral History Project on Early Las Vegas. In this interview, Moore and her priest discuss their religious affiliations and go through baptism records at their church. Afterwards, Moore describes the history of Las Vegas, Nevada and prominent families in the city as she presents the interviewer her collection of photographs and records.
Archival Collection
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Archival Component
Oral history interview with Nancy Horden conducted by Ward Murashige on February 26, 1980 for the Ralph Roske Oral History Project on Early Las Vegas. The interview covers Nancy’s family background, and life in Nevada, including home life, recreation, and hobbies. During this interview, Nancy also discusses local development, and the social and environmental changes that have occurred over the span of her lifetime in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Archival Collection
On April 6, 1976, collector Beatrice Scheid interviewed housewife Velma Holland (born October 17th, 1903 in New Market, Iowa) in her home in Boulder City, Nevada. This interview covers her early life in Boulder City. Mrs. Holland, Connie Degennes, and Beatrice Scheid are present during the interview.
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Oral history interviews with Kevin M. Kelly conducted by Dennis McBride on September 08 and 22; and November 10, 2000 for the Las Vegas Gay Archives Oral History Project. In the interviews, Kelly talks about his family and early life in Boston, Massachusetts with a focus on his Catholic upbringing. He recalls his law education, serving in the United States Army during the Vietnam War for eleven years, and discovering his sexuality in 1966 while working in the Boston City Hospital. Kelly then describes being discharged from the military due to allegations of being gay, and his family's reaction. He then recalls moving to Las Vegas, Nevada in 1978, where he was involved in a robbery and shooting incident with a male sex worker in 1982. Kelly goes on to recall the trial that proceed the incident and how it publicly outed him. He details how he was charged with felony sodomy and ultimately lost his job as a result of the trial. Finally, he talks about serving on a task force to investigate bias in Nevada's court system in 1992 and being honored in 1994 by the Gay and Lesbian Community Center of Southern Nevada for his work.
Archival Collection
Oral history interview with Laurents Bañuelos-Benitez conducted by Rodrigo Vazquez and Barbara Tabach on June 16, 2021 for the Latinx Voices of Southern Nevada Oral History Project. Laurents is a Las Vegas native, graduate of Clark High School, and son of Mexican and Salvadoran immigrants. He is currently an English teacher at Rancho High School and was a former student worker on the Latinx Voices project.
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Jerry Tarkanian, legendary and formidable basketball coach, met his match the day he was called before student court at Fresno State College and had to face as one of his judges Lois Esther Huter. Lois, a no-nonsense military daughter, eventually agreed to date Tarkanian and to marry him. The City of Las Vegas got lucky when UNLV recruited Lois’s husband as basketball coach. After picking cotton in California’s Central Valley Lois earned her Master’s degree in speech pathology and holds national certifications in speech pathology, language, and audiology. In 1969 she opened California’s first private day school for the hearing impaired, Oralingua School for the Hearing Impaired in Whittier. In Las Vegas she taught hearing-impaired children in her home on an individual and pro-bono basis. In this interview Lois recalls her teaching career, debates in deaf education, her 12 years on Clark County School District School Board, and the people and the neighborhoods that make up Las Vegas’s Ward 1, the area she has represented on the Las Vegas City Council continuously since 2005.
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