Carrie Townley Porter was born July 07, 1935 in Central Texas near present-day Fort Hood. Townley finished high school in Austin, Texas and attended the University of Texas in Austin for two years. She left college to get married, and she and her geologist husband lived in Kansas, Oklahoma, and Albuquerque, New Mexico. They had three children with no reliable child care so Townley became a housewife for a period. The Townleys lived a full and active life in Las Vegas, Nevada and Carrie Townley eventually got hired as a substitute teacher.
Person
Nevada Assembly Bill 496, titled, Family Fairness Bill, was introduced by Assemblyman David Parks in the 2001 legislature to establish reciprocal beneficiary relationships in state law. AB 496 was an attempt to establish some legal protections for same-sex and other "non-married" relationships under threat of the success of Question 2. AB 496's failure was blamed on Question 2. Question 2 was an anti-same-sex marriage constitutional amendment passed by popular referendum in Nevada in 2000 and 2002. This video records a debate between Richard Ziser, director of the referendum's sponsoring organization, the Coalition for the Protection of Marriage in Nevada [CPM], and Las Vegas queer activist, Vincent Frey over AB 496. The program which hosted this debate was Face to Face, a half-hour public affairs program hosted by renowned Nevada journalist, Jon Ralston [who has a transgender son named Jacob "Jake" Ralston], sponsored by the Las Vegas Sun newspaper and broadcast on Las Vegas ONE, a 24-hour local news network which was a collaboration among the Las Vegas Sun, KLAS-TV Channel 8, and Prime Cable [Prime was purchased in 1998 by Cox Cable/Cox Communications], on channels 1 and 39. The general manager of Las Vegas ONE was Robert "Bob" Stoldal. The network operated from April 6, 1998 through January 9, 2010. For information on Nevada AB 496, see Out of the Neon Closet: Queer Community in the Silver State, by Dennis McBride [North Charleston, SC: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2016], pp. 292, 304, 307, and MS-00802, Box 8 ["Domestic Partner Benefits - Nevada: AB 496 (2001)"] in the University of Nevada, Las Vegas Special Collections Department. For the history of POV Vegas, see "Sun to Launch Daily Television News Talk Show" [Las Vegas Sun, June 27, 1999]. An oral history interview with David Parks is deposited in the Special Collections Department of the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. [00:01:27 - 00:30:06]
Archival Component
The Frank Scott Papers date from 1940 to 1984 and contain promotional materials, photographs, and menus from the Union Plaza Hotel; University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV) basketball memorabilia; and KRLR TV documentation, correspondence, and news clippings. The collection also contains a scrapbook and photographs of the re-opening of the Mizpah Hotel in Tonopah, Nevada.
Archival Collection
The Robert E. "Spud" Lake Photographs depict "Spud" Lake, his family, and Las Vegas, Nevada from 1905 to 1947. The photographs include the Las Vegas town site auction, Stewart (Kiel) Ranch, Clark County Courthouse, Eglington Ranch, Helldorado Parade, and Colorado River and the Hoover (Boulder) Dam. The photographs also depict a Las Vegas Chamber of Commerce luncheon honoring Las Vegas pioneers, the Gold Bar Club tent in Pahrump, Nevada, and Fremont Street in Las Vegas.
Archival Collection
This collection has been removed from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas Libraries Special Collections and Archives' holdings by request of the donor. The collection was returned to the donor. Please contact special.collections@unlv.edu for further information.
The Leon Carter, Sr. Photographs (approximately 1948-2019) primarily contain photographic prints documenting Leon Carter, Sr.'s life living in Las Vegas, Nevada. Included are photographs of Carter, his brother John L. Carter, members of the Carter family, and snapshots from the Helldorado Days parade in the mid-1960s. The collection includes a photograph of Carter as a table dealer, a facsimile photograph of Carter when he played baseball in Canada in the early 1950s, and his yearbook portrait. Materials also include a brochure from Carter's political campaign running for County Commissioner in 1972, and a 1989 certificate of appreciation to Carter from the Las Vegas Breakfasters Lions Club.
Archival Collection
The Jon E. Cobain Papers (1963-2009) contains material representing Cobain's experience as the first official graduate of Nevada Southern University (later University of Nevada, Las Vegas) in 1964. Materials include photographs of Cobain and his family, a scrapbook from his 1964 graduation day, newsletters, a copy of Beau's Bits Handbook, personal correspondence, and his diploma. This collection is comprised exclusively of digital surrogates.
Archival Collection
The Clinton Wright Photographs (1964-2018) contains black-and-white photographic negatives of various sizes, dating from 1964 to 1971. The images document the Black experience in Las Vegas, Nevada during the 1960s and 1970s, and capture scenes of everyday life in the historic Black neighborhood known as the Westside, social events such as weddings and parties, and events hosted by local churches. The collection also contains a photograph of Clinton Wright from 2017 when he visited the University of Nevada, Las Vegas Special Collections and Archives, and a memorial program for his wife, Joyce Wright, who passed away in 2018.
Archival Collection