James Deacon was born at home in White, South Dakota. For the first few years of his life, the family moved around a lot to accommodate his father's job as school superintendent. Their summers were spent in a cabin on a lake, where Jim helped his grandparents in their store, seining minnows, clerking, and putting up ice. From his eighth grade year through high school graduation, the family lived in Aberdeen, which was the largest city (population 25,000) they had lived in Jim attended college on a tuition scholarship in Wichita Falls, Texas. He majored in biology and education, and then went to grad school at the University of Kansas. His favorite undergraduate professor knew the fish expert there and encouraged Jim to study fish. Instead of completing a master's degree, Jim went straight into the Ph.D. program. He graduated in the summer of 1960, and started applying for jobs. He interviewed with Dean Bill Carlson for a job at UNLV, which was then called University of Nevada Southern Regional Division. In 1964, Jim and his family moved to Reno and he taught two summers at UNR. As professor of biology, Jim focused on getting students involved in field studies as well as classroom work. He was instrumental in organizing the Department of Environmental Studies, which started in 1992. He also helped develop a master's program and a Ph.D. program in biology. He is best known for his expertise and involvement in the study of the Devil's Hole pup fish, an endangered Nevada species of fish.
Alice Brown, former UNLV librarian, was born in Cleveland, Ohio. She gives a thorough and fascinating history of her family going back to the 1600s and includes a detailed description of the family home, which may have served as a stop on the antislavery Underground Railroad. Alice attended college in Pennsylvania and earned a library degree at Carnegie. After Pearl Harbor, she enlisted in the Women's Army Auxiliary Corps and served in the U S. and overseas. Upon discharge from the Army, she worked as assistant children's librarian in Cleveland Heights for a time and then followed a friend out to Tacoma, Washington. She worked in the Tacoma Public Library as children's librarian, and also met her husband there. Alice's husband was offered a job in Henderson, Nevada, at the manganese plant. That didn't work out, but he was hired at Titanium right away. Alice describes Henderson as it was in the fifties, and also discusses the state of the libraries in both Henderson and Las Vegas. After the birth of her third child, Alice began working at the University of Nevada Southern Regional Division (now UNLV) part time. This was in 1962, and Alice shares detailed memories of the university campus, library, and faculty and staff from that era. Alice did not slow down after her retirement in 1985. She did volunteer work, traveled, and attended classes at UNLV. Today she volunteers at the Clark County Heritage Museum as a cataloger and at the hospital helping deliver papers and lab work to their various destinations.
Interviewed by David Schwartz. Chris Tonemah came to Las Vegas with her husband. Her marriage didn't work out, so she went to dealer school and got a job as a dice shill and a dealer at the Four Queens before women were really accepted in those jobs. She worked at the MGM Grand and talks about the fire in 1980. Chris also worked at Caesars Palace, the Venetian, and the Palazzo. Subjects: Four Queens, MGM, Caesars Palace, Venetian/Palazzo