Patricia Mulroy served Las Vegas as the general manager of the Las Vegas Valley Water District from 1989 to 2014. She served the state of Nevada as the general manager of the Southern Nevada Water Authority from 1993 to 2014. Patricia helped to build the Authority, and saw the state through the devastating drought of the Colorado River. Patricia was born in Frankfurt, Germany on February 24, 1953. As a young girl, she lived in several different countries, but always felt that the United States was her home. Her experiences abroad led her to develop a fascination with government work and state service. She arrived in Nevada in 1974 to attend UNLV. In 1989, Patricia became the general manager of the Las Vegas Valley Water District. She entered the field at a tumultuous time, facing the drought of the Colorado River and tension within the districts. She pioneered the Water Authority, which revolutionized southern Nevada’s water rights system and allowed the districts to deal with the is

Interviewed by Barbara Tabach. Born in Mexico, Francisco was a child when his father received permission to immigrate to the US with his younger children. Upon graduating from high school in California, he moved to Las Vegas where one of his sisters lived. It was 1994 and jobs were plentiful; he would find his way through several positions. Then in early 2000 he was hired to be a dishwasher, on the graveyard, at the recently opened Paris Hotel. It was a Culinary Union job; by 2002 he was a shop steward and finding better positions at Paris. He continues to work at the Paris Hotel as a fry cook. In 2008, he was a citizen and proudly voted in his first presidential election.

Interviewed by Elsa Lopez. Born in Belize, Director of AARP, speaks English, Spanish and Creole. Specialist in senior affairs.

On February 24, 1975, Kathleen Kasmir interviewed Marion Brooks (born 1913 in Santa Ana, California) about his life in Southern Nevada and his work as a mining engineer. Brooks first talks about his background before talking extensively about his early work in mining. Brooks also mentions some of the professional mining societies of which he was a part, and the two then move on to discuss gambling, recreational activities, and the atomic testing. Other topics covered during the interview include the price of groceries and food, the El Rancho Vegas, social changes, population growth, and environmental changes. The end of the interview then shifts back to Brooks’ work in mining at Blue Diamond and then a discussion on the possible locations of three lost mines.

Interviewed by Monserrath Hernández, Nathalie Martinez and Rodrigo Vázquez. Irene Cepeda is a woman dedicated to serving the Latinx as well as all minority groups in education in Southern Nevada. As a Las Vegas native, she grew up alongside the Latinx community here and is a proud Latina from Nicaraguan roots. She is dedicated to uplifting the Latinx community through her work with the Latino Youth Leadership Conference and college access specialist at Nevada State College. Now, as representative of District D on the Clark County School District Board of Trustees, she seeks to tackle the issues the district faces from acts of White supremacy to a lack of funding for English Language Learner families.

Laralee Nelson and her four sisters were born and raised in Provo, Utah. She was raised in a Mormon household, her parents worked at Brigham Young University and she attended BYU She was .nearly thirty years old when she moved to Las Vegas with her husband. The move was the first real move away from her Utah home base. She fondly recalls summers at an archaeological dig in Israel while studying for her undergraduate degree. But these were nothing compared to relocating to Las Vegas. Laralee's mother was a librarian at BYU and an obvious inspiration to her career choice. Once she arrived in Las Vegas, she applied for a cataloging position at UNLV. From 1982 to 2010, it was her first and only position. From that span of years, she witnessed monumental changes in the library. Changes in leadership, a move from the old Dickinson Library to the new Lied Library, and the impact of technology. Laralee's anecdotes, especially one about the professor with the red wagon and another about her father clearing a rocky path on a family trip, reveal core success of a library built to serve the university community.

They've been referred to as the two Jewish mothers who own a funeral home. At first glance that seems too simple a description. However, it is how they arrived at this description that tells a story of two women who moved here in the late 1990s and whose paths crossed as they became part of the Jewish community of Las Vegas. Laura Sussman arrived first. It was 1997. The Jewish Community Center, a JCC without walls as Laura puts it, hired her as its first executive director. She was from Ohio where there was a robust Jewish tradition. She was director for eight years; then executive director at Temple Beth Sholom. Wendy Kraft moved to the valley in 1999. She was a stay at home mom from Boston, who was accustom to volunteering in the Jewish community. Knowing no one and on the brink of divorce, the Jewish community became her life, a way to build a network of friends and keep her occupied just as it had been in Boston. The two women met through their work with the JCC and love followed. Several years later, in 2009, so did their new business, Kraft-Sussman Funeral and Cremation services. By February 6, 2015, Laura and Wendy had married. They had already formed a family with each other and their three daughters, Leah Sussman, Emma and Elyse Kraft. In this interview they discuss their joint sense of purpose that includes love of family, dedication to the Jewish community, pride in the LGBT identity, and providing caring services to those at the time of funeral services. They talk also of Jewish traditions related to death, the Jewish burial society known as Chevra Kadisha, and challenges of their industry. They share feelings about nonprofits and how they value being actively involved in the community.