Chef and longtime gaming executive Joseph “Joe” Wilcock was born in Detroit and raised by his mother, Ruby, and stepfather, Ross Johnson, in Sarasota, Florida; Gary, Indiana; and Harlan, Kentucky. After he graduated from high school in Gary he moved to Chicago to attend Washburne Culinary Institute. While attending Washburne Joe worked at Chicago’s Drake Hotel and lived at the Sears YMCA. After earning his certificate from Washburne, Joe worked at the newly opened Holiday Inn in Chicago, the Sea View hotel in Bal Harbour, Florida, and a resort at Blowing Rock, North Carolina. At Blowing Rock he heard about the new School of Hotel Management at UNLV and in August 1969 23-year-old Joe headed for Las Vegas with $400 in his pocket. Las Vegas was a disappointment. Joe could not get a job as a chef without first joining Culinary Workers Union Local 226-which he could not afford to do. Also, because he ran a poker game and cooked at the Chuck Wagon Diner during high school his high school grade point average was roughly a C-, which hindered his admittance into the School of Hotel Management. Undaunted, Joe found a job bussing tables at the Frontier Hotel and joined the Culinary Union so he could work as a chef. He also took three classes at UNLV that semester, earned an A in each, and was admitted to the School of Hotel Management. While at UNLV he affiliated with Sigma Chi fraternity. In his career Joe has worked in all facets of the gaming industry in such Las Vegas properties as the Flamingo Capri, the Frontier, Caesars Palace, the Tropicana, the Dunes, the Golden Nugget, the Mirage, Treasure Island, the Sands, MGM, and the Downtown Grand. He learned the business from the ground up. He also worked at Caesars Tahoe and at different times owned and operated a sandwich shop and a bar. Joe married his wife, Linda, 38 years ago in Las Vegas, in 1976. He is currently employed as a casino shift manager at the Downtown Grand hotel and is affiliated with the House Corporation of Sigma Chi Alumni, UNLV Rebel Golf, the Las Vegas Natural History Museum, and Candlelighters Childhood Cancer Foundation of Nevada.

Interviewed by Barbara Tabach. Publisher of Las Vegas Sun, child of Hank and Barbara Green. Part 1 Subjects: Las Vegas Sun, Greenspun family, Israel gun running; Part 2 subjects: Journalism importance, Las Vegas Sun, Watergate tie-in with Hank's safe, October 1 shootings reflections; Part 3 subjects: Hank and Barabara Greenspun. Talks about Jewish visionaries of Las Vegas that includes Art Marshall, Jack Entratter, Sheldon Adelson, Nate Mack; Part 4: Interviewed by Barbara Tabach. Las Vegas Sun newspaper publisher and native Las Vegan talk about events and people from Las Vegas' years of him growing up. From watching pink smoke from test site to hanging out with friends in the John S. Park neighborhood to racial riot of 1969 to playing golf as a kid.

In this oral history, Gary explains how the family came to live in the United States?Cleveland and Los Angeles. In 1957, he married Noreen and they eventually came to live in Las Vegas where Gary worked for Sears selling washing machines, had a repair business and an importing business with Noreen. Gary was an entrepreneurial soul and inventive much like his father. He owns three patents.

On August 25, 1931, Augusta and Herman Sternberg welcomed their second child, Gerd (aka Gary), into the world of Cuxhaven, Germany. Augusta was a devout Christian of Polish ancestry who had fled Russian persecution. Herman was a German-born Jew salesman and inventor. The couple fell in love and had two children, Gary and Ruth who was a year and half older. By 1938, German politics were targeting Jews and Herman was ripped away from his Christian wife and children and sent to a concentration camp. Fate and friendship rescued Herman with the option to go to China. And so begins the history of the Sternberg family and how they all would eventually live together during World War II in the confines of a Jewish ghetto in Hongkew, China from May 1939 to July 1948. Gary had an extraordinary career as a dealer. He was not the stereotypical young dealer-to-be: he was in his 40s when he signed up for the Michael Gaughn Dealing School in the mid-1970s. Gary?s charming wit and ease of making friends soon gained him a position at El Cortez and then Caesars Palace. It was the same personality that would sustain his stellar thirty-one year career at Caesars. He was employed there from April 1974 until his retirement May 8, 2005. Though Jewish tradition would identify Gary as Christian, he self-identified as Jewish, officially converted and has been an active member of the Jewish community. Among his anecdotes-and he has many-is one about securing a $30,000 donation from Frank Sinatra and Jilly Rizzo for Congregation Ner Tamid.

Throughout this interview, Blaine shares stories of his father, Alvin Benedict. Al owned and operated Benedict and Remy Plumbing Business for a few years before entering into casino management. He is considered to be the first college educated executive and had an illustrious executive career at the MGM. He also was a co-founder with Susan and Irwin Molasky of Nathan Adelson Hospice.

In this interview, Walter Weiss discusses how Judaism and boxing kept him out of trouble in his youth. Weiss grew up in the Boston area, and started boxing as a teenager. Weiss talks about his boxing training, becoming a runner for a bookmaker, and coming to Las Vegas in the 1950s to be a bookmaker for the Stardust Hotel, and working the slot machine floor. He had several different jobs in various casinos, and discusses different people involved in the gaming industry in Las Vegas.

Walter Weiss life story begins in a Malden, Massachusetts during the Great Depression. His early background was a blend of observant Judaism, secularism, and the effects of the era. He was a troubled youth whose older brother encouraged him to join him in boxing. As Walter explains: I was a wild kid and ... boxing saved my life. His aptitude for boxing led him to be a sparring partner in New York City's famous Spillman Gym. There he met and worked out with some of the greatest fighters of the era, including Rocky Marciano. He recalls how he turned professional while attending the University of Miami and how he first came to Las Vegas in 1958 to escape his personal troubles and find work with a local bookmaker. Thus began his diverse employment history in the casino industry. He details his various positions and the cast of famous and infamous characters of the times. For six years he return to New York and worked as a Wall Street broker before arriving back in Las Vegas in 1973. He talks about his property ownership, lobbying for an amendment to Senate Bill 208, his personal religious changes and a sundry of observations about the changes that occurred as the state took over gaming.

Oral history interview with Carolyn G. and Oscar B. Goodman conducted by Claytee D. White on October 18, 2014 for the Southern Nevada Jewish Heritage Project. In this interview, Carolyn G. and Oscar B. Goodman discuss their early childhoods and education. They tell the story of their marriage, family life, and careers. The Goodmans go into further detail on the growth of Las Vegas, Nevada as a community as well as a tourist destination.