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Transcript of interview with Kathleen Harney by Claytee D. White, July, 19, 2010

Date

2010-07-19

Description

Kathleen and Tim Harney moved to the John S. Park neighborhood in 1975, about ten years after relocating from Ohio to Las Vegas, where teaching jobs paid more and the education system was more innovative. The Midwestern ambiance of John S. Park was attractive large trees and older homes among the outstanding features. In this interview, Kathleen laments the neighborhood changes that may be part of a normal aging cycle of any neighborhood as being more acute because of commercial changes on the Strip. Of the years they lived there, Kathleen speaks glowingly of the neighborhood's diversity—diverse in work schedules as much as in religion. She lists the various restaurants and describes the activities that drew the community together. It was a wonderful place to raise their girls who each graduated from Las Vegas High School. . As a passionate educator, she also speaks about the importance of schools, after school programs no matter what neighborhood one raises their children. And while the Harneys moved from John S. Park, she fondly recalls it as the place where she "really became a Las Vegas." It was the place where her family grew up and a place that "needs a little love" at this time. Special Note: Tim Harney, Kathleen's husband, and Kimberly Harney-Moore, their eldest daughter, are also participants in the Voices of the Historic John S. Park Neighborhood oral history project.

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Transcript of interview with Timothy Harney by Claytee D. White, June 12, 2010

Date

2010-06-12

Archival Collection

Description

Tim Harney begins his reminiscences with an overview of his Irish-Catholic upbringing in Duluth, Minnesota. He recalls being smitten with the sunny west and moving to Las Vegas in 1965 to take a teaching position at Rancho High School. By 1973, the Harney family was calling the John S. Park Neighborhood home. He describes the attraction to the green trees and sprawling lawns and to affordable home prices. It was a close knit neighborhood where everyone had the same gardener, knew the local policeman by name, and where his daughters worked at the Luv-It Frozen Custard shop. Around 1987, Tim decided to move out of the John S. Park Neighborhood. He sensed a change—having been broken into by the Hole-in-the-Wall Gang, watching drifters and homeless people sleeping in the yard, and seizing an opportunity to move to a new development. Nevertheless, Tim notes hopes for the neighborhood and reminds us that "It takes a village."

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Transcript of interview with Mary Hausch by Claytee D. White, April 7, 2009

Date

2009-04-07

Description

It was spring vacation 1971 when Mary Hausch arrived in Las Vegas with four girlfriends. As a Ohio University senior, the closing of college campuses due to anti-Vietnam War protests had given her a reprieve from final tests and papers. The spontaneity of the trip and her enjoyment of the weather resulted in her applying for, and getting, a reporter position at the Las Vegas Review-Journal. For the next nineteen years, she worked her way up the newspaper ladder, covered local education issues that included desegregation, a groundbreaking series of POW-MIA war stories, and the Nevada legislature. She became the first woman city editor and managing editor of the newspaper. Her career journey was not always smooth. It was an era of cultural roadblocks and emerging feminism. Eventually, Mary was passed over for the ultimate appointment of R-J editor and was placated with a short-lived "associate editor" position. She describes the ensuing civil rights complaints and how she segued into teaching at UNLV. During her robust journalism career, Mary's personal life also hit some rocky times, but ended happily when she met and married Bob Coffin, a then reporter for the newspaper. [Bob is interviewed separately for this John S. Park neighborhood series.] The couple bought the Gubler House in John S. Park and Mary describes the charm of the house as well as the neighborhood, historically and currently. Mary was a tireless participant in the efforts to have John S. Park designated a historic neighborhood. This two-part interview paints a picture of a community that has weathered various phases from what she calls the "widow phase" to the "homeless" to the rebirth stirred by new residents. She also offers advice and thoughts for those looking to achieve the historic designation for their neighborhood.

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Transcript of interview with Dee Hicks by Claytee D. White, May 4, 2008

Date

2008-05-04

Archival Collection

Description

Dee Hicks was born in Damascus, Arkansas, in 1946. She was the tenth of 13 children born to Guy and Augusta Goff. Her father was a Baptist preacher and carpenter by trade, and her mother was a housewife. Dee's decision to become a nurse became a focal point in her life in the tenth grade. She joined the Future Nurses' Club and geared her high school classes toward nursing. Later Dee went to Oklahoma Baptist University and graduated with a bachelor of science in nursing. After marrying in 1969, Dee joined her husband in Las Vegas, who was stationed at Nellis Air Force Base. At the age of 22, she joined the staff at Sunrise Hospital. There were only 500 beds at that time, and over the course of her 35 years at that hospital, she saw it grow to 701 beds. Dee's career included starting out as staff nurse, then becoming charge nurse, house supervisor, director of adult critical care, assistant director of nurses, and finally director of nurses. She shares how she honed her skills in various workshops and courses, observed various surgeries, and witnessed the evolution of nurses' uniforms from formal whites to colorful scrubs. In addition to her nursing duties, Dee also served on the State Board of Health and on many nursing boards. She did volunteer work with Street Teens, helped pass a bill that allows LPNs to do IV interventions with patients, and took training to be a parish nurse so she could volunteer to help sick people in her congregation. She stands ready today to help her community in whatever way she can.

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Transcript of interview with Nancy Houssels by Claytee D. White, March 19, 2014

Date

2014-03-19

Description

Nancy Claire Houssels, co-founder of Nevada Ballet Theater and board member of The Smith Center for the Performing Arts, the UNLV Foundation, International Women’s Forum, and the Women’s Leadership Council United Way, first arrived in Las Vegas in 1966 as a 31-year-old to dance in Frederic Apcar’s Casino de Paris show at the Dunes. After nearly two years in Las Vegas, she left and vowed to never return. However, Maynard Sloate, producer of the new Folies Bergère at the Tropicana came to New York to entice Nancy and her dance partner to return to Las Vegas in 1968 to open the show. Her relationship with Las Vegas took an unexpected turn after she had dinner with the man who signed her paycheck, hotel owner, J. Kell Houssels Jr., and his divorce lawyer. J. K. Houssels fired Nancy and they married in her home town of Piedmont, California, in 1970. Since that time the Houssels have lived in Ward 1’s Rancho Circle. Houssels shares the history of Rancho Circle, which began in the 1940s as a racially restricted area. Rancho Circle has its own security and homeowners draw water from the Rancho Circle Water Cooperative, but there are no CC&Rs because homeowners have not agreed on them. Formerly a volunteer at Childhaven Nancy co-founded the Nevada Dance Theater (now Nevada Ballet Theater) with Vassili Sulich in 1972. The group performed at the Judy Bayley Theatre and Artemus Ham Hall at UNLV but extensive community outreach and grants from Summa Corporation and the Don Reynolds Foundation earned the group a permanent home facility in Summerlin. See “Downtown Las Vegas Living: Tour Nancy and Kell Houssels estate!”

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Ron Current interview, March 16, 2012: transcript

Date

2012-03-16

Description

Ron Current's heart was always in the right place, with respect to social activism and his dedication to empowering the black community in Las Vegas. Inspired by Black Panther Party founders, Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale, Ron started the Black Panther Party Las Vegas Chapter. He was also the director of public relations for the National Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression; an organization created to work in tandem with the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, NAACP, to eliminate racial inequality. Ron describes the overall atmosphere of the Westside community in Las Vegas during the early days, as chaotic, drug infested, and riddled with daily gang related shootings. He also recalls the historic preservation attempts made by leading members of the Westside community, such as Sarann Knight Preddy. Ron recalls working at the University Medical Center while recruiting for the Black Panther Party Las Vegas Chapter. This interview demonstrates the power of love. As the founder and leader of the Black Panther Party Las Vegas Chapter, Ron was named one of the most influential blacks in Las Vegas by the Sentinel Voice. He recalls utilizing his hands-on leadership approach towards capacity building and the successful implementation of community mobilization strategies and methods. He was a champion for educational equity, equal access to employment opportunities, and economic equality in Las Vegas, Nevada.

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Transcript of interview with Dorothy George by Claytee White, October 13, 2003

Date

2005-10-13

Description

After serving as a nurse in World War II in Hawaii, Okinawa and Japan, Dorothy returned home to Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin. She experienced a particularly bad winter and she set out for California but stopped in Las Vegas to visit the family of her traveling companion, a girlfriend from her home town. The girlfriend returned to Wisconsin and George applied for a nursing license and got it within three days. She never left. Dorothy met her husband while working the night shift at Clark County Hospital. He would come in regularly to assist his patients in the births of their babies. Their occupations and their service in World War II drew them together in a marriage that has lasted over fifty years. From 1949 to this interview in 2003, Dorothy George has seen Las Vegas grow from a town that she loved to a metropolitan area that is no longer as friendly. She reminisces about the Heldorado parades, family picnics at Mount Charleston, watching the cloud formed by the atomic bomb tests, raising six successful children, leading a Girl Scout Troop, and working in organizations to improve the social and civic life of Las Vegas.

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Transcript of interview with Jim Hodge by Claytee White, April 13, 2009

Date

2009-04-13

Archival Collection

Description

Jim Hodge describes an active and success filled life in this narrative. Born and raised in the South, Jim enlisted in the Navy at the young age of 17, just as World War II was winding down. His primary job was that of a cook. He became smitten with the life of an entertainer after participating in a play and headed for Hollywood in 1952. It was there that he auditioned for Donn Arden, who organized and directed Las Vegas shows. Though he didn't get the part, he did get hired to be a singer for a show featuring Betty Grable. Thus his career was launched and would span the heyday of Las Vegas entertainment from the 1950s to the 1970s. Jim talks about the people, shows and places that touched his life. He also offers thoughts about the changes in the Vegas entertainment scene as well as shares his relationship with his church over the past 40 years.

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Transcript of interview with Vincent Kethen by Claytee White, December 23, 2009

Date

2009-12-23

Description

In 1964, the year that Vincent Kethen was born, desegregation of Las Vegas schools began. Like many African-American children living in the Las Vegas Westside neighborhood, Vincent was bused out of his neighborhood in third grade to attend a white school. In his case, this meant attending John S. Park Elementary and later other predominantly white schools. He talks about these experiences. John S. Park was a neighborhood of manicured lawns, while the school bus and the classroom were places fraught with fisticuffs. The experience of growing up during that era are recalled. Vincent provides a sense of that it was like to reside in his home neighborhood and the onslaught of the drug culture altered gang-lead neighborhoods. Being bused had positive results he explains, such as athletics, which served as an equalizer. For Vincent, a solid upbringing, which included love of church and the chance to attend college, encouraged him to make good decisions about his future. He received a four-year degree and he returned to Las Vegas to "give back." For over a decade and a half, her has coached young basketball players and helped them see their options for a brighter future than they might otherwise have seen.

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Transcript of interview with Myoung-ja Lee Kwon by Claytee White, September 4, 2004

Date

2004-09-03

Description

Myoung-ja Lee Kwon began her life on the grounds of the Kyongbok Palace in Korea. In a country where education is valued, her father's occupation as a university professor meant that the family was highly honored, thus this palatial space allowed them live in a state of prosperity. But war changed these circumstances and in this interview Kwon vividly explains the family's evolution. In 1965, after graduation from Seoul National University she married and a year later, moved to the United State of America where she earned a Master's degree in Library Science in Provo, Utah. Her first professional position was at the University of Nevada Las Vegas as a cataloguer and after many promotions, became interim dean of UNLV Libraries. In 2001, she took the job as Dean of Libraries at California State East Bay Library, retiring in 2008. Currently, she serves as a special lecturer and discussion leader with the Fulbright Senior Specialist Program. During her 2009 visit to Korea, she pr

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