Photograph of Dr. Thomas White, Dr. Donald Baepler, and Dr. Juanita White holding a rare engraving of President Lincoln stored in Special Collections, UNLV Library, 1970s.

Dr. Lonnie D. Spight grew up in northern Colorado, earned his bachelor's degree at Colorado State University, and his PhD at University of Nevada Reno. His interest in astronomy dates from his early years on the farm in Colorado, star-gazing in the fields at night. Before coming to UNLV, Lonnie worked for the Department of Defense on scattering cross sections and explosions. Working between Los Alamos and the Test Site, he was often in Las Vegas and had met most of the physicists at the university. He was invited midterm to take over a physics class for a faculty member who had fallen ill, and was offered a job the following fall of 1970. In the seventies when Dr. Spight arrived, the physics department was located in trailers, and the university campus was mostly desert. Lonnie served as chair of the department on several occasions, and was responsible for insisting that faculty members get involved in research, no matter how tight the budget. He worked on solar energy and far-field microwave analysis, and helped set up safety standards for the new laser technology. One of Dr. Spight's interests outside of physics is a love for classical music. He was a volunteer "Deejay" for 12 years with KNPR once it got started in 1980. Meanwhile, after 37 years with UNLV Lonnie retains his enthusiasm and love for teaching. Today he teaches quantum mechanics and hopes that one day he will be able to teach a particle physics course which ties together cosmology, the beginning of the universe, fundamental cutting edge physics, quarks, gluon plasmas, and more. He has the course materials ready to go and is looking forward to many more years at UNLV.

Dr Leonard Goodall, former president of UNLV, comes from a unique educational background. He was born in Warrensburg, Missouri, a small town of only 6,000 souls, and received 12 years of education in the same building. After high school, he attended Central Missouri State College, which was only about 2 miles from his home. Dr. Goodall earned his master's degree at the University of Missouri, and attended the University of Illinois for his doctorate in political science. He went right into academic life, accepting a job at Arizona State in Tempe on the basis of a phone call. For five years he taught in the department of Political Science and conducted research at the institute. He subsequently moved to the University of Illinois Chicago as instructor and then chancellor (four years), and from there to the University of Michigan Dearborn as chancellor (eight years). In 1979, Leonard accepted a position as president of UNLV. He oversaw the development of the College of Engineering, helped create the UNLV Foundation, and made a number of appointments, such as athletic director, any number of deanships, and academic vice president of student affairs. After his presidency, Dr. Goodall returned to his professorship in public administration and served on many campus committees. He phased his retirement over several years, and was completely out in 2002. Today, Leonard continues to serve on graduate committees for UNLV, and works on the search committee to find a new president.

Dr. Robert Bruce Smith was born in Philadelphia and spent his first two years in New Jersey, but thinks of California as home. His father's calling as a minister had taken them back east, and after his seminary training they returned to Los Angeles, followed by a five year stint in Oregon before returning to Vista, California. After high school graduation, Bob left home to attend Wheaton College in Illinois, a small Protestant school. He met his wife there and after completing his Bachelor's in chemistry they were off to Berkeley, where he completed his PhD in three years. Along the way, Dr. Smith had worked for G.D. Searle in Skokie, Illinois, and at first thought that this was his calling. His semester as a Teaching Assistant, however, convinced him that the academic life was what he wanted. Late in 1961, he learned of a job opening at the Southern Regional Division of the University of Nevada (now UNLV), interviewed with Malcolm Graham who was recruiting in San Francisco, and flew to Las Vegas to see the campus for himself. It consisted of three and a half buildings surrounded by desert. Robert's thesis director encouraged him to take the job at this new, very small college, so he and his wife drove to Las Vegas to find an apartment. They fell in love with the area and he started at UNLV as assistant professor of chemistry. He did work in organic chemistry and served as chair of the Department of Physical Sciences, as it was then called. In 1968 the department was turned into a college, and Bob became the dean of the College of Science and Mathematics. He held this position for 12 years. In 1980, Dr. Smith accepted an offer from Weber State College in Ogden, Utah, and served there as Academic Vice President (later Provost) until his retirement in 1998. He recalls with great clarity the people, changes, and events that he was involved with during the early years at UNLV. Today he and his wife enjoy their retirement in their favorite spot in the San Jacinto Mountains.

Thomas Nartker was born and raised in Dayton, Ohio, and most of his family, including three brothers and a sister, still live there. He attended grade school and high school there, and then attended the University of Dayton. He majored in chemical engineering, following the example of his father, who had a degree in electrical engineering. By the time he was a sophomore in college, he was six-foot nine and had spent some time on the basketball court, but when asked to play his senior year at U. of D., he declined. He had already been accepted for graduate study at the University of Tennessee. Thomas finished all course work and research on his master's in one year, everything but the thesis. He interviewed over 30 companies before he graduated, but an interview with DuPont in Delaware made him think about the value of a PhD in his line of work. He applied and was accepted at Texas A&M. He worked with Dave Billingsley, who was the resident computer expert, and Dave showed him how to process all the data he had collected for his master's thesis on the IBM 650. Tom had found a new passion. Within a year, Tom was working as an assistant in the data processing center at Texas A&M, and was also the teaching assistant for the computer programming class. After completing his PhD, which took 6 years, Thomas began interviewing again. He accepted a position at New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology (NMIMT) as assistant professor of mathematics and director of the computing center. He left NMIMT in 1981 and took a job with Shell Oil Company, which included 5 years as a visiting staff member at Los Alamos. In 1985 he met John Werth, who ultimately offered Tom a job at UNLV. Tom made the move to Las Vegas in July of 1985. Dr. Nartket and Dr. Taghva started the UNLV Information Science Research Institute and did experimental research on Optical Character Recognition (OCR) for the Department of Energy (DOE). They invented many metrics never seen before, including a metric called Nonstop Word Accuracy. Today UNLV is known worldwide for being the premier center for doing research in OCR technology. Thomas is in his seventies today and continues with his research and teaching because he loves it. He has enjoyed over two decades at UNLV and finds it a rewarding and intellectual place to be. He considers this university to be one of the most exciting in the country as it grows in research and service.