Karen Sarret Bartolo’s life in Las Vegas from 1948 to the present exemplifies the vast changes that took place in the social, cultural, and physical landscape of the city over the course of the twentieth century. Schools and businesses mentioned in interview are/were located in Las Vegas, Nevada. Karen Sarret Bartolo moved to Las Vegas from Reno at five years of age in 1948 with her parents, Jules James Sarret and Ila Burgess Sarret, and younger brother, Gordon. Upon arriving in the city her father opened Sarret's Office Supply, the family rented a small, two-bedroom house on Tenth Street, and Karen attended John S. Park Elementary School. Younger sister Lynn was born in Las Vegas...The Sarrets reveal how quickly Las Vegas and the Clark County School District grew in the second half of the twentieth century. Although Karen completed eighth grade at West Charleston Elementary before going to Las Vegas High School (one of the city’s two public high schools), her siblings attended Hyde Park Junior High school. Gordon then matriculated to Western High School, while Lynn graduated from Ed. W. Clark High School.

A former high school government teacher and championship baseball coach at Western High School, Reynaldo Martinez, Chief of Staff for former Congressman and now United States Senator from Nevada, Harry Reid, is one of a select few Americans, Hispanic and non-Hispanic, to work within the privileged confines of the United States Senate, this nation's highest elective body.