Arrangement note: Series I. Demonstrations, Subseries I.A. Frontier Strike

Arrangement note: Series I. Demonstrations, Subseries I.A. Frontier Strike

Betty Blevins was born in the small town of Berry, Alabama. She graduated from high school there in 1953 and then went on to nurses' training at the University of Alabama School of Nursing in Birmingham. She recalls the segregated wards, emergency rooms, and drinking fountains at the university hospital when she worked there in the fifties and early sixties. Betty's husband was hired at the Nevada Test Site as a journeyman electrician in 1963 and they moved to Las Vegas with their two children. Betty remembers living near Desert Inn Road and the Boulder Highway and taking her two older daughters to the Huntridge Theater on Charleston and Maryland Parkway, where they could see a movie and buy treats for fifty cents apiece. When Betty started working in Las Vegas as a nurse, there were only two hospitals, Sunrise and the old Memorial Hospital (now UMC). She was hired at Sunrise Hospital and describes the layout, recalls some of the surgeons she worked with, and offers up anecdotes of life in the O.R. Her third daughter was born at Sunrise as well. Betty eventually worked at Memorial and Valley View Hospitals, and ended up back at Sunrise. She recalls assisting during the first open-heart surgery with Dr. Ficus and the first corneal transplant with Dr. Shearing. Ms. Blevins describes the monumental changes in operating techniques and surgeon education, the installation of telephones in the O.R., the introduction of disposable sterile equipment, and the advent of computers and lasers. She recalls the first kidney harvest in which she participated, and shares examples of the humor that could be found in the hospital. She retired in the eighties and looks back on her long career with satisfaction.

Ramon "Ray" Martinez was born in Park City, Utah, but spent part of his childhood in Pioche Nevada. His mother and father both worked in aircraft factories and the Navy shipyards during WWII. Ray graduated from high school in 1953 and went on to the University of Utah on a Munich Scholarship. Before graduation he joined the Air Force, became an electronics technician, and got married. In 1959, Ramon left the Air Force and re-enrolled in college, graduating in 1964 During this time he supported his growing family by working for the FAA and teaching' at Weltech College. After college, he worked for a short while and then entered an electronics technology program near Rochester, New York. It was during this period that he saw an ad for department chair in electronics technology at Nevada Southern University. In 1968, Ray interviewed at Nevada Southern and was hired. He and his family moved to Las Vegas and he began teaching mechanical engineering courses like status and dynamics. He used NSF summer grants to further his education with two summers at Louisiana State and Utah State, and then two summers at Worcester Polytechnic Institute, where he completed his master's degree. Ramon was here when Nevada Southern University changed its name to University of Nevada Las Vegas and the engineering department became part of the College of Math and Science. He made the move out of trailers into a high-tech building, has seen the change from slide rules and calculators to computers, and helped develop master's and PhD programs. He was involved in much of the work of accreditation, and taught his students much more than status and dynamics. He taught them how to negotiate job interviews, write concise technical reports, and be appreciative of the education they received in other disciplines.