Edward Butera was born April 08, 1949 in San Jose, California. He would spend hours constructing home models from the time he was a five-year-old boy. Butera also loved math and music—specifically the clarinet. After earning his Bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering at San Jose State University, he was hired by Ralph Joeckel as a consulting engineer for Trane, a heating and air conditioning company
Craig Palacios was born on November 1, 1971 and grew up in the Paradise Palms neighborhood in Las Vegas, Nevada. His family lived close to him and he remembers playing with his relatives up and down the Maryland Parkway Corridor. His first job was in construction where he poured and finished concrete. His talents
indy Coletti, founder of Sun West Custom Homes, began her career designing custom homes in Florida and Colorado before moving to Las Vegas, Nevada in 1989. Coletti founded El Rancho West Homes in Florida in 1976 before moving to Colorado Springs, Colorado in the early 1980s. Her son, Dan Coletti, the principal designer, took over operations of Sun West Custom Homes in 2001 after her retirement. Over the years Coletti and Sun West Custom Homes have won a number of achievement awards and have been highlighted in construction and architecture magazines.
Dorothy Casner Evans arrived in Tonopah, Nevada in 1938. She started working for her brother-in-law, Dave Roberts, as a bookkeeper at his freighting and house-moving business (Dave is the husband of Ellen Roberts, Dorothy's sister). She later started driving trucks and moving houses for the company. In 1950, Evans left the house-moving business and began working at the Tonopah Club. She left the Tonopah Club in 1962 to take a job as deputy sheriff in Mercury, Nevada. Dorothy Casner Evans died on November 24, 1993.
Renée grew up in a family of fifteen children. In 1956 she married musician Roger Rampton, a successful percussionist. They soon moved to Las Vegas where Roger performed on the Strip. She remained active in her Mormon faith and the Church's music ministry. When the Clark County School District was going to cut their music programs in the early 1970s, she became a vocal community opponent. In the 1970s the Mormon Church opposed the Equal Rights Amendment.
Alfred J. O'Donnell was born November 8, 1922 in Boston, Massachusettes. He worked as a technician, opening the laboratory of EG&G, formally known as Edgerton, Germeshausen, and Grier, Inc., in Las Vegas, Nevada in support of the Nevada Test Site. He was part of a four-man party responsible for final checks and connections of 1968 nuclear and hydrogen bombs. He died on April 9, 2015.
Cork Proctor was born on July 22, 1932 in Wisconsin. His family moved to Las Vegas, Nevada in the 1940s, where he attended Las Vegas High School. During the 1950s he worked as a valet at the El Rancho Vegas, and then as a lifeguard at the Sahara Hotel and Casino. He later worked as a musician, traveling with several bands until the 1970s, when he first performed his stand-up comedy act. His career as a comedian, which spanned over 40 years, took him to various venues across the United States. Cork Proctor currently resides in Ecuador.
Dorothy Susan Steiwer was born in Seattle, Washington on February 5, 1948 to Mary B. and Robert Leland Steiwer. On July 16, 1969 she married Robert Ritenour and the couple made their home in Las Vegas, Nevada. Dorothy attended the University of Nevada, Las Vegas and earned her bachelor's and master's degrees. She divorced Robert Ritenour on July 17, 1978. She then married Richard Franklin Wright on February 4, 1984. After Frank Wright's death in 2003, she married Richard Avila.
Calvin Anthony Shields was a Las Vegas, Nevada musician who played the trumpet and drums. He was born on April 28, 1924 in Jacksonville, Florida. Shields played with the Billy Williams Quartet in countries around the world, and later formed "The Calvin Shields All-Star Band" and played nightly at the Carver House, located in Westside Las Vegas. He also played in clubs and casinos in Las Vegas including the Flamingo Hotel and Casino, the Sahara Hotel and Casino, the Landmark Hotel and Casino, and the Hacienda Resort Hotel and Casino.