Yvonne Fried, M.D., is the fourth child of five born to Milton and Esther Fried, the founders of Freed’s Bakery. In 1955, Yvonne arrived in Las Vegas as the little sister with three older brothers. Their father was a musician, who ventured into the snack bar business, which he grew with his enterprising wife. Yvonne became a medical physician and lives in Oregon. Yvonne is married to Martin Jacobson. They have three children: David, Daniela, and Max Jacobson-Fried.

Dorothy O’Donnell George was born in 1921 in Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin. After serving as a nurse in World War II in Hawaii, Okinawa and Japan, George returned home. She experienced a particularly bad winter and set out for California, but stopped in Las Vegas, Nevada to visit the family of her traveling companion, a girlfriend from her hometown. George applied for a nursing license, got it three days later, and never returned to Wisconsin.

Mike Gordon (1903 - 1992) was born Meyer Harold Gordon. He is one of the founders of Temple Beth Sholom in Las Vegas and served as Temple president from 1949 to 1951.

In 1932, Mike moved to Las Vegas with his wife, Sallie Gordon. They owned and operated liquor and grocery stores. Mike also worked as a postman and later became Clark County Secretary of the Democratic Central Committee and a member of the Las Vegas Chamber of Commerce board of directors.

Dr. John Richard Shepherd was born November 25, 1936 to Harley and Mary Shepherd and was raised in southern Illinois. He married his wife, Nancy Shepherd, on June 22, 1963 in Pana, Illinois. His army experiences in Chicago, Illinois and Alabama convinced him and his wife to look for a warm dry climate in which to live, and they relocated to Las Vegas, Nevada in 1968.

JoNell Thomas was born February 11, 1966 and grew up in Murray, Utah in a large family. She attended college at Utah State and the law school at University of Utah. She moved to Las Vegas, Nevada in 1992 and held multiple careers from being a staff attorney with a Las Vegas firm to an attorney with the Clark County Special Public Defender’s office. Thomas, her husband, Billy Logan, and their twin daughters have lived in the John S. Park Neighborhood since 2001.

Anne Kellogg was born May 19, 1970 in Las Vegas, Nevada. Her paternal family came to Las Vegas in the 1950s and her mother arrived in the late 1960s to teach. After her parents married, they set up their first home in the John S. Park neighborhood.

Dennis Ortwein was raised in a small town in Montana called Harlowton, the second oldest of seven children. He arrived in Las Vegas, Nevada in 1956. Once in Las Vegas, Ortwein taught for a while, served as principal, and was involved in creating programs that helped integrate schools. He was also involved with his church choir, the entertainment industry in early Las Vegas, above-ground testing at the Nevada Test Site, and anti-nuclear protests.