Prentiss Walker was born October 18th, 1910 on an Indian reservation in Comanche County in southwestern Oklahoma. His youth was spent in Stockton, California, and Phoenix, Arizona. His father had been a minister in the Methodist Pentecostal Church. In 1933 he came to Las Vegas, Nevada. He worked in various places including at a café, the Mercury Test Site, a trailer park, a used car lot, and multiple retail stores. In 1956 he was ordained into the ministry of the Baptist Church.
Iris Torjman was born June 22, 1947 in the Bronx of New York. She moved to Las Vegas, Nevada in 1966 to live with relatives as a young woman. She met her husband, David, in Las Vegas when they actually lived within blocks of each other in New York. Torjman worked for the Clark County School District as a health aide. She and her husband have been successful in investing in local property and enjoying their retirement.
William “Bill” J. Sheehan was born March 01, 1932 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He was brought up in a Catholic household with a credit checker as a father. Knowing he might be drafted, Sheehan joined the United States Marine Corps in the 1940s and then returned home to finish his studies to become an accountant.
William Snyder was born and raised in Easton, Pennsylvania. When he was growing up, he discovered the challenge of architecture first by perusing books in the library and then by hands-on construction experience. His love of art allowed him to build homes, office buildings, airport terminals, and the McCaw School of Mines on the campus of McCaw Elementary School in Henderson, Nevada. He moved to Las Vegas, Nevada in 1978 with his wife, Joy and raised their two sons. In 2001, The William E.
Marty Walsh was born in Detroit, Michigan in 1957 and grew up as the middle child of two sisters. They moved to Louisville, Kentucky when Walsh was 13. After graduating from high school, she moved to Cincinnati to attend college at the Art Academy of Cincinnati. Walsh visited almost every state in the United States before moving to Massachusetts, where she met and married her husband. In 1989, they sold their house and backpacked around Europe until they moved to Las Vegas, Nevada in 1998. The Walsh family bought a home in the John S.
William Dean Whitaker was born March 04, 1925 and raised in a suburb of Los Angeles, California. Dean, as he is known, had his youth end quickly when he joined the United States Air Force and became an aviation cadet once he turned 18 years old. The year was 1943 and World War II was raging. He became a member of the 398th Bomb Group and flew twenty missions before being captured by the Germans. He married his wife, Lucille, on May 15, 1946. They moved to Las Vegas, Nevada together in 1990.
Eddie Anderson is a political and social activist based out of Reno, Nevada. In the 1990s Eddie Anderson was spokesman for NO HATE (Nevadans Organized for Human, Advocacy, Tolerance and Equality). His work is focused on fundraising for multiple sclerosis, political campaigning for the Democratic Party, and equal rights for minorities and women. Much of his work is concentrated on gay rights and promoting tolerance. Anderson had a career in the 1980s and 1990s as a radio talk-show host where he discussed many of these issues.
Ernest M. Fountain was born in Tallulah, Louisiana. After finishing his bachelor's degree in business administration, Fountain moved to Las Vegas, Nevada to study banking and finance. He began his banking career in 1976 when he started working for Valley Bank of Nevada. At the time, he was one of only two black lending officers in the state of Nevada. He is the former Director of the Las Vegas Minority Business Development Center, and is also the founder and past president of the Black Business Council of Nevada, formed in 1991.
Effie Siedentopf Spicer was the co-owner of the Boiling Pot Outfit Ranch with her husband, Jim Spicer. In 1987, she recieved a length of service award from the Western Region of NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) for her work recording weather patterns in Beatty, Nevada.
Sources:
McCracken, Robert D. "Interview with James C. Weeks." Beatty Museum. Accessed June 18, 2020. https://www.beattymuseum.org/oral/weeksjames/weeks.pdf.
Bill (William Allen) Zender was born April 02, 1955 in Chicago, Illinois and spent his formative years in Las Vegas, Nevada. He earned a bachelor's degree in hotel administration from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas in 1976. During his career, he worked at several casions in various positions, including blackjack dealer, pit boss, and general manger. He worked in the Enforcement Division of the Nevada Gaming Control Board and taught college courses on gaming management. He owned the business Bill Zender and Associates LLC.