Rosemary Christian, David Peinado, Dale Pryor, Virginia Velasquez, and Greg Venezia are among the elite of Las Vegas bartenders. The bars that they work and have worked span from one end of the Strip to the other; the original Aladdin, The Silver Slipper, O’Sheas, the Monte Carlo, Slots ‘A’ Fun, the Luxor, Caesars Palace, and the Rio. Their stories take us from family ownership to corporate. Families allowed all casino bars to be set up in an identical fashion, each type of glass and each liquor bottle was set in the same location all over town. A bartender could walk into a new location and start work without a moment’s hesitation. Corporate thinking changed that need for an outside bartender to work in random places. When women began in this lucrative field, tension occurred but lessened as men recognized that women could lug beer kegs with the best of them and they could easily calm down a drunkard using her womanly touch. The thread throughout this roundtable discussion sews together the exceptional lives of these five bartenders with their membership in UNITE HERE Bartenders Union Local 165. In conjunction with the Culinary Workers Union Local 226, insurance, wages, job satisfaction, uniforms, giving back to the Las Vegas community, and many other benefits occur, seemingly, without effort. “We are skilled craftsmen.” “We have security working for the union and health benefits and a pension. So it's something that's long term. It's longevity working for a union. You know you always have someone backing you.”

Nevadans Dixie Morrison and Neil A. Brundy met in 1959 at a rodeo in St. George, Utah. Born in St. George, Utah, Dixie was raised in Meadow Valley Wash, in Lincoln County, Nevada, on an 800-acre ranch, where she milked cows, barrel-raced, and attend high school via correspondence. Neil lived in Caliente until he was four, when his parents bought ten acres near Rancho Road (US 95) and moved to Las Vegas. Neil attended Fifth Street School, Las Vegas High School, and graduated from Rancho High School’s first graduating class in 1957. The couple married in 1964 in the Little Church of the Flowers and proudly parented six sons. In this interview, the Brundys describe life in rural Nevada and in Las Vegas in the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s; work on the railroads; barrel-racing; and rodeos. As members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, they also talk about their family history work. Their memories evoke the streetscapes of pre- and postwar Las Vegas, its outskirts and downtown; race- and class-based tensions in the schools; the glamour of Las Vegas casinos when they were owned and operated by the mob; and the country music stars who performed downtown. Now residents of Southern Utah, Dixie and Neil come to Las Vegas to hear hardcore rock. Their three youngest sons formed the hardcore rock band, Folsom. When Folsom plays locally the proud parents attend a performance and enjoy family time with their band member sons and the sons and their families who live locally.

Elmer Curley is known simply as Curley. He came to Las Vegas to work in the area of public service for the UNLV library in August 1967. Thus he launched a lifelong move from a smaller community north of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania to Las Vegas. He only imagined it would be a four to five year move. To his amazement he continue to live here and retired shortly before this interview after a successful career at the library. During this narrative he talks about moving into the University Park Apartments, working with a small budget in the earlier years of the "round building" library, and the humor of receiving book donations that could result in multiple copies of a title. Over the years since 1967, Curley worked with a long list of the various directors observed many changes to the city and experienced the inspiring growth of UNLV.