Brad Friedmutter is the architect behind a number of Steve Wynn’s prominent casinos in Las Vegas, Nevada and Atlantic City, New Jersey. He obtained his degree in architecture in 1973 from the Cooper Union School of Architecture in lower Manhattan and worked on a number of smaller projects before connecting with Steve Wynn. After meeting the famous Vegas tycoon, Friedmutter built a number of well-known casinos, like the Golden Nugget and the Mirage. In this interview, he discusses the development of his numerous projects, explains his process for starting and completing architectural projects, and the future of urban planning and casino design.

Interviewed by Nathalie Martinez. Laurents Bañuelos-Benitez also participates in the questioning. Luis F. Valera serves as the Vice President of Government Affairs at UNLV. His heritage is from Venezuela and Cuba. He has served as the Chairman of the Latin Chamber of Commerce and has been an active member of the Latino community since his pursuing his undergraduate degree at UNLV in Political Science and his Juris Doctorate degree from the William S. Boyd School of Law. His various achievements in the community and nation led him to become recognized and awarded the Arturo Cambeiro Hispanic of the Year Award in 2011.

Dr. Catherine Bellver is a woman with tenacity. How else could one describe her drive to create the Women's Studies Program spanning fifteen years? As a faculty member in the Department of Foreign Languages, Dr. Bellver first joined the Women's Studies steering committee in 1979. In the following decade, the committee oversaw the formation of the Women's Studies Program, including: procuring administrative and faculty support, creating bylaws and course criteria, critiquing proposed cross-listed courses, and selecting course offerings. During that period she also worked with a volunteer group to create and staff the first Women's Center on campus. In the early Nineties, she played an instrumental role in the presentation of four public colloquia that addressed key issues pertaining to women. Dr. Bellver acted as interim director of the Women's Studies Program while overseeing the search for a permanent director. She continued to remain involved with the Women's Studies program, serving as faculty member on several committees. She has also worked in the Women's Caucus on the regional and national levels of the Modem Languages Association Dr. Bellver is currently Distinguished Professor of Spanish in the Department of Foreign Languages at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. Her work has appeared in journals such as Anales de la Literature Espanola Contemporanea, Hispanic Review, Hispanofila, Insula, Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies, Monographic Review/Revista Monografica, Revista de Estudios Modernos, Revista Hispanica Moderna, Romance Notes and Romanic Review. Dr. Bellver's participation in the creation of the Women's Studies Program illustrates how critical institutional and social progress can result from the commitment of a determined group of individuals. Her decades of involvement in creating an academic arena for the study of women and gender issues underscores the significance of women's contributions to the history of Las Vegas. In addition to the history of the Women's Studies Program at the University of Nevada Las Vegas this interview contains information regarding the creation of the first Women's Center on campus.

Della Mae Rostine left Missouri with her husband, Rocco, in 1942, and headed to Las Vegas. Happy to leave behind the hard life and instability the mining industry had to offer, after living in Las Vegas for the first year the couple settled in Henderson, Nevada, known as the townsite at that time. Della Mae’s oral history provides readers with a glimpse of what life was like for the 14,000-plus individuals and families who also moved to southern Nevada during the same period in order to make a living in the growing “war work” industry the area had to offer. Della Mae shares the hardships faced in finding housing, especially for families with children. She discusses challenges ranging from securing home furnishings to purchasing groceries, including the rations on gasoline and butter at that time. Della Mae also discusses her experiences with the Basic Magnesium plant where her husband was hired as a construction worker in the early days of the plant and where she would work briefly as a machinist making shell casings and monitoring the down time on the production line. She also touches briefly on the social opportunities the BMI plant, and later Rheem Manufacturing, offered to the workers and their families. When World War II ended, more than half of residents of the townsite left, leaving fewer than 7,000 people to form what would later become the city of Henderson, Nevada. Della Mae’s oral history is a brief overview of a family life which began when BMI was just getting off the ground and continued through the many changes that took place in the BMI complex and the town site over several decades. The timing of the Rostine family’s arrival and the fact that they stayed and made a permanent home in Henderson led to their designation as one of Henderson’s “founding families.”

Kim Vilt grew up in Woodland Hills, CA; lived an outdoor life in rural San Fernando Valley and was the oldest of four children. Graduated from CSUMB. Served with the Peace Corps in Bulgaria and met husband James J. Vilt there. Eventually Kim moved to Las Vegas and talks about changes to Las Vegas and to the John S. Park community. Kim Vilt has lived in the John S. Park Neighborhood for ten years and plans to stay there as long as she and her husband live in Las Vegas. Their house was built in 1946.

From the Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Incorporated, Theta Theta Omega Chapter Records (MS-01014) -- Chapter records file.