Oral history interview with Byron J. Schnell-Davis conducted by Claytee D. White and Stefani Evans on July 30, 2024 for the UNLV Remembers: an Oral History of the 6 December 2023 Shootings project. In this interview, Schnell-Davis recalls crossing Pida Plaza towards to the Flora Dungan Humanities building (FDH), where about twenty classmates had just begun setting up for an informal end-of-semester final session when a classmate heard from her father, a UNLV professor, that they should leave because there had been a shooting on campus. As their instructor had received no such message yet, he urged the class to remain in place until they knew more. When the University Police Department alerts began a few moments later, Hebbler and his students arranged themselves against the walls of the windowless classroom, and Schnell-Davis pushed his table in front of the door. He describes the sounds they heard and the barricade they erected in front of the door, using his water bottle to jam the door handle. He texted four words to his parents and friends: "I'm safe. More later." After about an hour, the police came to the door and identified themselves. As Hebbler opened it, they pointed their loaded automatic weapons directly at him. Hebbler and his students were evacuated to the parking lot across from campus, and they dispersed. Digital audio and transcript available.
Archival Collection
UNLV Remembers: an Oral History of the 6 December 2023 Shooting interviews
To request this item in person:
Collection Number: OH-03923 Collection Name: UNLV Remembers: an Oral History of the 6 December 2023 Shooting interviews Box/Folder: Digital File 00 (Restrictions apply)
Oral history interview with Derek Ellison conducted by Claytee D. White and Stefani Evans on August 16, 2024 for the UNLV Remembers: an Oral History of the 6 December 2023 Shootings project. In this interview, Ellison, a junior majoring in physics, shares how his father works in the Physics Department at UNLV so Derek knew the campus well even before he became a student. He describes how he was on the second floor of the Student Union, using the computer lab to write his final paper when the alerts began. Students in the lab, a glass-enclosed room, began to hide. He talked to his parents all the while thinking about his essay in the back of his mind. Because Beam Hall was so close, police came to the Student Union quickly and asked everyone to leave. Derek exited the building from the Maryland Parkway side and took refuge near the apartments to the south. Ellison's father picked him up and they went home. He recalls returning a few days later, seeing the memorial that had been erected, and reading the tributes honoring the three faculty members. He and his father discussed the racism aspects of the shooting since all those murdered were people of color. Digital audio and transcript available.
Archival Collection
UNLV Remembers: an Oral History of the 6 December 2023 Shooting interviews
To request this item in person:
Collection Number: OH-03923 Collection Name: UNLV Remembers: an Oral History of the 6 December 2023 Shooting interviews Box/Folder: Digital File 00 (Restrictions apply)
Pamela Sitton’s childhood stories follow her construction worker father’s journey from one job to the next. She learned to adjust to a family move at a moment notice, to play in the back of a pickup truck and lived in a series of trailer homes. Finally in 1963, they moved to Las Vegas, where her father worked at the Test Site. For Pam, it was a chance to finish her schooling in one town. She attended the original Las Vegas High School and then UNLV, where she earned a degree in English literature. She recalls the Vegas of the 1960s for her unique perspective—a time of war protests, working a series of part-time jobs from cocktail waitress to post office worker, and her path to marriage in 1973. A position at UNLV’s library had been a dream job that she finally achieved when hired in 1974 as a member of the circulation staff. She held various positions throughout the library and remembers the various library buildings as a student and a professional.
Brian Drischell, Academy Vault Mgr (green shirt) Jeffery Masino, Associate Director, Film Archive (purple shirt) Dallas Reiber, Grad Assistant (stripes) (Geri Kodey/UNLV Photo Services). Photographs from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas Creative Services Records (2010s) (PH-00388-05).