Search Results
Transcript of interview with Joanna S. Kishner by Barbara Tabach, January 10, 2017
Date
Archival Collection
Description
Joanna Kishner epitomizes the native Southern Nevada who was raised in both a Jewish and secular world of Las Vegas. A daughter of Ellen Neafsey Jobes and Irwin Kishner, she was born in 1964 and graduated from Clark High School in 1982. As she recalls, the halls of Clark High School witnessed a stellar cast of characters in the early 1980s, from future casino executives, to additional judges, to comedian Jimmy Kimmel. Judge Kishner earned a double major in Political Science and Psychology from Claremont McKenna College (1986) and graduated from UCLA School of Law (1989.) She remained in California and worked as senior counsel for Warner Brothers, a division of Time-Warner Entertainment Company and was also an associate with the multi-national firm Paul Hastings Janofsky & Walker. In time, she felt the tug to return to her childhood roots in Las Vegas. She and her husband were married at Temple Beth Sholom, where she had her bat mitzvah and raises her own children in the Jewish tradition. Judge Kishner has been recognized for her legal work throughout the years, this includes pro bono work for disadvantaged children through the Children’s Attorney Project. When she set her sights on becoming a judge, she was joined by her young family as she knocked on thousands of doors to introduce herself and her passion for justice. In 2010, she was elected to Department XXXI of the Eighth Judicial District.
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Eddie Escobedo interview, February 25, 2019: transcript
Date
Archival Collection
Description
Interviewed by Maribel Estrada Calderón. Claytee White also participates in the questioning. Eddie Escobedo was born in 1961 and two years later, he and his family immigrated to the United States. He fondly remembers his father, Edmundo Escobedo. Escobedo is currently in charge of the newspaper that his father started, El Mundo Newspaper.
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Transcript of interview with Mary Shaw by Barbara Tabach, September 2, 2011
Date
Archival Collection
Description
For the first 19 years of her life, Mary Martell Shaw called Central America home. Then thanks to misrouted luggage, she met the love of her life Rollin H. Shaw, a civil engineer, at a time in when his atomic energy career was taking off. In October 1943, they married in Costa Rica and for the next two decades traversed the country: Hawaii to California to Panama—wherever a project required Ronnie's engineering skills. Mary supported her husband every step of the way, with every new location. As a traditional homemaker of the era, she became adept at raising their four kids while packing boxes, enrolling them in school and setting up a warm home wherever they landed. The move to Las Vegas in September 1964, however, left her a bit challenged: there was a shortage of adequate housing, a concern for where to send her two daughters and two sons to school, and the feeling that they wouldn't be here long. Years later, Mary and Ronnie would retire to the city where their roots ran deepest, Las Vegas. With great wit, Mary recalls the long absences demanded by Ronnie's work with the Atomic Energy Commission. She also tells stories of the great fun they and their fellow Nevada Test Site employees had at parties, of her learning to paint with watercolors, and the pride she has of all her children's successes based on their education in Las Vegas.
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Hildred Meidell interview, February 27, 1979: transcript
Date
Archival Collection
Description
On February 27, 1979, collector Greg Abbott interviewed Hildred Meidell (b. March 17, 1900 in Webb City, Missouri) about her time living in Las Vegas, Nevada. Meidell covers a range of topics, from her and her husband’s time as tourists in the city and their subsequent retirement to Las Vegas from Los Angeles, California. Meidell describes the Las Vegas Strip, the interstate and highway conditions between Los Angeles and Las Vegas, as well as their numerous visits to Hoover Dam (Boulder Dam). Moreover, she speaks about the changing layout of the city, the increase in shopping centers and department stores, and the clothing stores inside of hotels. Lastly, Meidell talks about the prominence of churches in local communities, the atomic testing program and the structural damages these tests caused in her neighborhood, and the influence of the railroad and passenger train on the town.
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Transcript of interview with F. Andrew Taylor by Claytee White, September 30, 2013
Date
Archival Collection
Description
F. Andrew Taylor has been a Las Vegas resident for over 20 years, moving to the city by way of New England and Georgia at the age of 28. Armed with a degree in painting from the Swain School of Design, got a job at a Laughlin casino as a caricature artist. After a brief stay in Laughlin and Bullhead City, Andrew moved to Ward I, where his girlfriend, now wife, lived. They soon moved to the Spring Valley area, where Andrew later learned through conversations with neighbors and his own research that the home sat on what was the old Stardust Racetrack. With Andrew’s move to the city came new professional opportunities. He got a job at CityLife as the in-house artist and graphic designer, what was then apart of Wick Communications. After a year, Andrew began reporting, initially working for the Sunrise/Whitney paper, and eventually working the downtown beat. Always feeling the pulse of the local arts and culture scene, he has attended First Fridays since it started, continues his own art,
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James L. Hogan interview, March 11, 1978: transcript
Date
Archival Collection
Description
On March 11, 1978, collector Patty L. Baratti interviewed James Hogan (born April 6th, 1909 in Winton Place, Ohio) at his home in Las Vegas, Nevada. In this interview, Hogan talks about his time working with the telephone company in Arizona and moving to Las Vegas, Nevada. He discusses his time working on grazing rights and cattle ranching in Nevada and how planning went to ensure that farms were able to have land to graze their animals. He speaks about dealing with farmers, corporations, and the government and the frustrations he had to deal with before there were set laws about grazing. He also discusses the change from mainly family farms in Nevada to corporations owning much of the farmland.
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Transcript of interview with Sally L. Jackson by Krista Jenkins, March 2, 1980
Date
Archival Collection
Description
On March 2, 1980, collector Krista Jenkins interviewed assistant manager, Sally L. Jackson, (born March 28th, 1932 in Culver City, California) in her home in Las Vegas, Nevada. The interview covers the social and environmental changes that have occurred in Las Vegas. Sally also discusses the hospitality industry and offers details on the local hotels, casinos, and nightclubs in Las Vegas, Nevada.
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Transcript of interview with Thelma Coblentz by Judith Chavez, February 17, 1980
Date
Archival Collection
Description
On February 17, 1980, Judith Chavez interviewed Thelma Coblentz (born 1911 in New Jersey) about her experiences in Southern Nevada. Coblentz first talks about her move to Lovelock, Nevada, where her husband provided medical care as one of the first physicians in the small town. She later talks about her move to Las Vegas and some of the services she helped to provide at Nellis Air Force Base. Coblentz later describes Downtown Las Vegas, specifically the development of the casinos and shopping businesses. She later talks about the rainstorms and dust storms that the city would experience before recalling some of the entertainers who would perform on the Las Vegas Strip. The interview concludes with a discussion on the first physicians in Las Vegas and the increasing population of the city.
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Transcript of interview with Roger Thomas by Stefani Evans and Claytee D. White, August 31, 2016
Date
Archival Collection
Description
As he reveals in this oral history, Roger Thomas is, among many other things, a son, a father, a brother, a husband, a student, an artist, a visionary, and a philanthropist. As the second son of Peggy and E. Parry Thomas’s five children, Roger was raised a Mormon child of privilege and civic responsibility. The banking family summered in Newport Beach, wintered in Sun Valley, and taught their children by words and deeds that it is not up for debate if you will be involved in your community; the only question is how you will apply your talents and resources to benefit your community. Roger absorbed the lessons well. As a child who struggled in school but excelled in art, he attended his last two years of high school at Interlochen Arts Academy, graduating in 1969, finally finding himself “in an environment where what I did had currency.” From there he earned his BFA from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts Boston and Studio Degree from Tufts University before returning to Las Vegas and eventually joining Steve Wynn’s team in 1981. As Executive Vice President of Design for Wynn Design & Development, he is the man in whom Steve Wynn places his trust to make real at each Wynn property the Wynn design philosophy: aim for a constituency of highly sophisticated, well-traveled, very educated people and give them a reality, a now, that is so fetching, so alluring they wish to be no place else. As he was mentored by his father and Steve Wynn, he too is mentoring those who will follow him. At Wynn, the next generation will carry forward the Wynn idea of evoca-texture, of creating “moments of experiential emotion that result in a memory so captivating and so unique that if you want to repeat that you have to come back.” At home, he collaborates with his daughter on a children’s book that has the potential to become a series; she is the illustrator, while he provides the words. Roger Thomas sat for this interview five days after his father, E. Parry Thomas, passed away in Idaho. Instead of postponing the interview to a more convenient time, Roger kept the appointment and explained, “This is for UNLV. If I’d cancelled my father would have killed me.”
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Transcript of interview with Dr. Fiona Kelley by Lisa Gioia-Acres, March 21, 2009
Date
Archival Collection
Description
Dr. Fiona Kelley was born and raised in Connecticut. Her parents were both teachers (though her mother quit teaching to raise their two daughters), and Fiona recalls the European vacations the family took every summer, exploring castles and enjoying picnic lunches. Fiona was educated at Greenwich Academy in Connecticut and Bard College (dance major with art history minor) in New York. She mentions dancing in Acapulco and California and then auditioning and being hired as a cover dancer for Hallelujah Hollywood! at the MGM in Las Vegas. Meanwhile, she had also become licensed in massage and states that as she was making the transition from dancing to production of dance, she and her husband were invited to China. While in China, Dr. Kelley recalls visiting a hospital which specialized in the treatment of AIDS through acupuncture. This led to a decision to learn Oriental medicine, which she pursued once she returned to the United States. She shares many details of her studies
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