Nevada politician and women's advocate Imogene "Jean" Young was born in Miami, Oklahoma, on December 28, 1929, to Daisy Adelphia (Flook) and Clarence Nathan Young. She had one brother, Byron Young. Her family moved to Joplin, Missouri, where she attended kindergarten through high school. In 1951 she graduated from Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas with a B.A. in Sociology. After graduation she worked as a recreational therapist for the American Red Cross in military hospitals until 1955.
Nevada businessman and Republican politician Jacob "Chic" Hecht (1928-2006) was elected to the U.S. Senate in November 1982. As a senator, he used quiet diplomacy skills to help Soviet Jews gain permission to emigrate. During the Korean War, Hecht served as a counterintelligence agent in Berlin. After the war he moved to Las Vegas, Nevada and operated several businesses. Hecht also represented Clark County in the Nevada State Senate for eight years.
Patrick “Pat” Anthony McCarran (1876-1954) was a United States senator who was significant in Nevada’s politics for more than fifty years. He was a supporter of the aviation industry as well, lobbying for the construction of the Nellis Air Force Base. McCarran was one of the few Democrats who opposed President Franklin D. Roosevelt and was also known to be a passionate anti-Communist.
Helen Jane Wiser Stewart was born in 1854 in Springfield, Illinois. When she was nine years old, the family moved to Nevada, and then to Sacramento, California in 1863. Helen was educated in Sacramento and in 1873 she married Archibald Stewart in Stockton, California.