Frank Leone was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. he bagan playing paino as a young child. Frank earned degrees in music and moved to Las Vegas in 1967. He played at various casinos, played with famous singers such as Frank Sinatra, Steve Lawrence and Eydie Gorme, and Elvis Presley, and he conducted the Berlin Synphony and the London Philharmonic. Frank was a board member and president of the Musicians Union.

D. Taylor knew from the time he graduated Georgetown University he wanted to make his career in the labor movement. He credits his Virginia-born mother as an early mentor; she was at once “nice,” “tough,” “genteel,” and “liberal,” and she instilled these values in her son. As a new college grad, Taylor headed west to Lake Tahoe, where he was hired in 1981 by the Culinary Union to organize workers and oversee an eleven-and-a-half-month strike. Culinary then sent him to organize Las Vegas in 1984, a few years after Ronald Reagan crushed the 1981 Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization strike and only months after the Amalgamated Transit Union strike against Greyhound went down in defeat. In this interview, Taylor recalls that in 1984, most Las Vegas casinos were no longer owned by individuals and families but by multinational corporations that refused to negotiate improved health insurance coverage for their workers. Taylor led a citywide strike that ultimately cost the union six casinos and about eight thousand members. In 1987, Culinary sent him back to Las Vegas, where he has remained. He tells the history of the union in Las Vegas and its leadership, especially crediting Al Bramlet in the 1970s for recruiting a diverse workforce and promoting casino hiring through the union. In 1987 Taylor changed the union rep structure to give a larger voice to Las Vegas’s racially diverse workforce and began recruiting potential leaders of color (like Hattie Canty)—thus, he followed Bramlet’s lead but pushed it further to create a truly bottom-up organization. The husband and father is especially proud of the various programs Culinary Workers Union Local 226 has implemented to improve the lives of Las Vegas union workers and their families but sees widening gaps in the city between those who have great wealth and those who do not. To Taylor, his work is “always about the members. They endure so much. They sacrifice so much.”

Heidi Swank interview on July 28, 2014: Nevada Assemblywoman, Founder of Nevada Preservation Foundation, Founder of the Flamingo Club; Scott and Heidi Swank Interview on October 13, 2014: Talks about the John S Park Neighborhood, being an independent professional in Las Vegas, and the Flamingo Club.

Margaret Ostler Stout-Hall’s personality shines in this interview, in which she discusses growing up in Las Vegas’s Rancho Circle. She moved to Las Vegas with her family in 1951, when she was twelve and her father bought Las Vegas’s Seven-Up Bottling Company. She immediately found friends at John S. Park Elementary School and later at Las Vegas High School, where she became a Rhythmette. Margaret describes her Rancho Circle neighborhood, dragging Fremont Street, working at the El Portal Theater, and dancing at the Wildcat Lair. As a Rhythmette, she traveled to New York and Philadelphia to perform on the “Ed Sullivan Show” and the Elks National Convention. Stout-Hall credits Rhythmette advisor, Evelyn Stuckey, for developing a sense of confidence, belonging, and responsibility in the young women she led. It was this confidence that enabled Margaret to go to work for Harry Reid after she suffered a tragic loss. Former Rhythmettes honored Stuckey by lobbying the Clark County School District to name a school after their former mentor; the school opened in 2010.

Geoconda Arguello Kline is the first female Secretary Treasurer of the Culinary Union Local 226. She got there the hard way. Beginning as a maid, then union organizer, director, ten years as President, and then the in 2012, she attained the highest office in the local. Arguello Kline left Nicaragua in 1979 as a political refugee and settled in Miami. The wages there did not allow her to take care of her family so she moved to Las Vegas following family members who had taken union jobs upon their arrival. She joined as well and worked as a guest room attendant for eight years. After becoming an organizer, she organized and walked picket lines whenever necessary. She is adamant that striking is the last thing that workers want to do. Her longest strike and the longest one Culinary Union history was the Frontier. The strike lasted for six years, four months, and ten days. Geoconda feels honored to be a member of the Culinary Union Local 226. ”It is a testament to our diverse and incredible members that has put me her. We undoubtedly have challenges ahead, but I’m confident that we will overcome by working as a union.” I’m sure that this quote by her in 2012 holds true today.

James “Jim” Bonaventure worked from thirteen years of age, entering the hotel casino industry at sixteen. The weekend buffet at the Hacienda was not his cup of tea but he hit his stride at his second job, the Horseshoe, and stayed there for seven and half years. But it was the work at the Union Hall that he loved. He stayed there for over thirty years developing the grievance department into today’s state-of-the-art entity that negotiates between employees and employers. Bonaventure served on the front lines of major disputes including strikes. In the beginning, the Las Vegas Police Department sided with hotel casino owners but over the years as personnel changed, they became more egalitarian in the treatment of strikers. The 1984 strike was one of the most contentious and up to that time, the largest in the history of the union. More than 17,000 workers walked off their jobs to protest conditions at 32 Hotel Resorts. Arrests were plentiful. As soon as the leadership reached the picket line, they were immediately handcuffed. The bitterness did not end when the 9-month strike concluded. Bonaventure remembers Bally’s putting up $100,000 to fight grievances. Still, the union won 85% of the cases. Then several downtown casinos reared their collective heads. The Golden Gate Hotel and Casino, Las Vegas Club, and the Plaza Hotel Casino were dubbed the Downtown Three. Strained relationships turned into a lawsuit where the Culinary Union was paid $40,000. Then in 1989 Fitzgerald’s Hotel Casino’s actions called for a picket line. Bonaventure and other leaders agreed on a Noise Night. Union member brought pot and pans and banged on them. The night ended with a lawsuit filed by police officers claiming hearing loss. From the bottom of his heart, Bonaventure is a Union Man. It has been his life’s work. He is most proud of and humbled by his work as a trustee of the Culinary Academy of Las Vegas. Anyone can train there for most positions in the hotel industry and be hired into the industry upon graduation. And it’s the place when U.S. citizenship classes are given to all those ready to apply. During this 2014 interview Jim Bonaventure was thinking about retirement or at least slowing down. I would not be surprised if he’s still at his Culinary Workers Union Local 226 desk handling more grievances than anyone else in his department.

Alan Feldman fell in love with Las Vegas because of the Siegfried & Roy show at the Frontier. After the opening illusion, Crystal Chamber, “I don’t remember breathing.” Feldman grew up in a home with a creative father who was a self-trained musicologist and expert on Paul Robeson. His mother worked as a bookkeeper so Alan was encouraged to be grounded and to soar. As a theater major at UCLA, he was encouraged to hone his Public Relations skills. That expertise brought him to Las Vegas and to Steve Wynn and to work toward a changing relationship with the Culinary Workers Union Local 226. His work here has been life changing; management and labor did not have to fight at the end of each contract. He speaks of the changed understanding in this way: “…we also wanted to make a better product, and in making a better product we needed the employees to step up. Because if you are going to put five million dollars into a restaurant in 1990 where prior to that the most anyone had ever spent was a million, if you were going to tell the world come to Las Vegas because the experience is better, then the experience needed to be better. Maybe this is the part of Steve that he does deserve credit for, although, again, I think it's more—no, he's not alone now and folks like Jim Murren have absolutely taken up this same kind of notion. The building doesn't deliver your bags. The building doesn't hand you the meal. The building doesn't take your order. So great, you've got a volcano and you've got fountains and you've got stunning architecture. Fantastic. But if you don't have a smile on your face when you're welcoming someone to the hotel, it sucks and the rest of it doesn't matter.”