Oral history interview with Rocio Rodríguez-Martinez conducted by Elsa Lopez and Monserrath Hernández on June 21, 2019 for the Latinx Voices of Southern Nevada Oral History Project. Rocio shares her personal history growing up in Bogotá, Colombia and how she immigrated to the United States. She talks about motherhood, her Latina identity, and her experiences raising her daughter in Los Angeles and Las Vegas with her husband. Rocio also discusses her employment history and how she was able to achieve her professional goals of becoming a Spanish and English teacher for the Clark County School District (CCSD)'s Family and Community Engagement Services (FACES) program. Her interview is conducted in Spanish. Subjects discussed include: Bogotá, Colombia; El Salvador; Family and Community Engagement Services (FACES).

Oral history interview with Sergio "Checko" Salgado conducted by Laurents Bañuelos-Benitez, Barbara Tabach, Elsa Lopez, and Monserrath Hernández on June 4, 2019 for the Latinx Voices of Southern Nevada Oral History Project. Checko talks about his personal history that led him to pursue journalism and photography. He discusses his education and employment working in art galleries in Denver, Colorado and Las Vegas, Nevada and the various art exhibitions he has designed including in the Marjorie Barrick Museum at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas and in the Reynolds Senate Building in Washington, D.C.

In this interview, Fine discusses her childhood as well as the path that led to her career in law, which included working on a presidential campaign in New York City as well as several legal secretary positions in Washington, D.C., Texas and California, before eventually receiving her law degree from Golden Gate University. In addition, she reflects upon working on the infamous Jeff MacDonald murder trial in the 1970s as well as her experience becoming?and ending her service as?a Family Court Judge. Fine also discusses her community service work, particularly with the Women?s Philanthropy Board of the Jewish Federation and with Temple Beth Am.

Frances-Ann "Fran" Fine-Ventura is an attorney at the Fine and Price Law Group in Las Vegas, Nevada. She was born September 28, 1951, in Cleveland, Ohio, and moved to Arizona at the age of eleven when her father sought new economic opportunities out West. Fine eventually moved to Las Vegas shortly after she graduated law school in 1983. Fine worked for the U.S. Attorney's Office in Nevada in the early 1980s, then at several private law firms. From 1992 to 1998, she served as a District Court Judge in the Family Division of the Eighth Judicial District Court. Fine is involved in the Las Vegas community via the Nevada School of the Arts and the Court Appointed Special Advocate (CASA) Foundation in Clark County, Nevada. She has also been involved with the Women's Philanthropy Board of the Jewish Federation of Las Vegas since 1984, and served as chair from 2014 to 2016. Fran Fine's brother is Las Vegas real estate developer Mark Fine. In this interview, Fine discusses her childhood as well as the path that led to her career in law, which included working on a presidential campaign in New York City as well as several legal secretary positions in Washington, D.C., Texas and California, before eventually receiving her law degree from Golden Gate University. In addition, she reflects upon working on the infamous Jeff MacDonald murder trial in the 1970s as well as her experience becoming?and ending her service as?a Family Court Judge. Fine also discusses her community service work, particularly with the Women?s Philanthropy Board of the Jewish Federation and with Temple Beth Am.

Gertrude (n?e Rightman) Rudiak was born in 1915 in North Dakota to Russian immigrants. She grew up in Wisconsin until 1924. That was the year the family drove to California via the Yellowstone Trail, a dusty, undeveloped road marked by yellow stones. In Los Angeles, her father practiced chiropractic, a holistic approach to well-being for which there was little knowledge at the time. Gertrude earned her music degree at University of California at Berkeley; a decision that did not lead to a career. She then attended a business college and got a job as a social worker in Northern California. In 1941, she met and soon married George Rudiak. It was the advent of World War II. George enlisted in the service and was assigned to Las Vegas Gunnery School (Nellis Air Force Base.) Since he had a law degree from University of California at Berkeley and passed the Nevada Bar exam, he found supplemental employment with local attorneys. Las Vegas became the Rudiaks? permanent home where they raised their five children. In this interview Gertrude recalls the stories of coming to live in Las Vegas of the 1940?s: their phone number was 1-2-3; the neighborhood they lived in longest being Scotch 80s and being part of the secular and Jewish communities.

Interview with Jerry Countess and Dorothy Eisenberg by Barbara Tabach on October 28, 2014. Countess discusses his childhood and military life. He became involved in the United Jewish Appeal in Las Vegas and started the Jewish Reporter newspaper. Dorothy Eisenberg is also involved in the interview to discuss the Jewish Federation and the Jewish community.

Jerome Countess, known as Jerry to most, was born on December 22, 1920 in Brooklyn, New York. He grew up in the borough's Jewish neighborhood, and he developed a reputation for being a skillful handball player and a great dancer. Though he was not allowed to enlist in the U.S. Coast Guard due to colorblindness, Jerry was eventually drafted into the army during World War II. With very minimal combat training, Jerry was sent to North Africa as an infantryman, and was later stationed in Italy. After three years of service, Jerry returned home and married his childhood sweetheart, Rachel, in 1945. Using the G.I. Bill, he enrolled at New York University to study writing, though he quit just shy of graduation as his wife was expecting. After briefly working in the television broadcasting industry, Jerry landed a job with the United Jewish Appeal. In 1975, following in his desire to move west, Jerry took the job of executive director of the Combined Jewish Appeal in Las Vegas, what would soon be renamed the Jewish Federation of Las Vegas. Under his leadership, the federation started the Jewish Family Service as well as The Jewish Reporter, a monthly publication to promote engagement of the Jewish community. Jerry served as the executive director of the federation for many years, serving at the pleasure of many board members and presidents, including the first female federation president, Dorothy Eisenberg.

“My very first car… Oh, boy, I can't remember the year. It was old. But it was a [Chevrolet] Monte Carlo. Oh, my gosh, I was so excited. . . . It was my pride and joy. I'm a teenager, right? It was freedom. That's what it was.” It might seem incongruous that the aviation director for the nation’s eighth busiest airport ranked by passenger volume would begin an oral history rhapsodizing over the freedom her first car represented. But despite the powerful role she occupies professionally, Rosemary Vassiliadis remains true to her Chicago upbringing in a tight-knit Italian family, in which she was the first female on both sides to go to a four-year college. Rosemary attended nearby DePaul University, where she earned her degree in accountancy. Shortly before she graduated she was a bridesmaid for an Italian friend whose Greek Orthodox groom had asked Billy Vassiliadis to be his groomsman. Over the three days of the wedding Rosemary and Billy became acquainted and began a long-distance courtship that continued for nearly nine years before Rosemary finally agreed to marry Billy and make Las Vegas her home. This oral history chronicles Rosemary Vassiliadis’s Las Vegas career from financial analyst with the City of Las Vegas under Myron Leavitt to working with Randy Walker at Clark County to working with him again as deputy director of aviation at McCarran Airport; she shares how both men mentored her, and how their teaching has in turn inspired her to mentor younger women leaders. She talks about managing the airport in the six days after the Nine-Eleven (9/11) Terrorist Attacks, during which time Walker, who had been attending a conference in Montreal, was grounded there when all North American airports closed; she talks about working cooperatively with the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority to transport tourists once the other airports opened, and she confides her determination to get her New York passengers home first so they could learn the fates of, comfort, and draw comfort from their loved ones. She walks listeners through the process of planning for Terminal 3, including financing it during the downturn, selecting its art, and seizing the opportunity to thank President Obama in person for making Terminal 3 possible-a “thank you” that resulted in an autographed photograph of the aviation director with the President as they stood on the tarmac in front of said terminal. While Rosemary’s ideas of freedom and transportation have likely matured since she bought her first gas guzzler in Chicago, she has acquired a firm grasp on what it takes to run the eighth-largest passenger airport in the U.S., which in 2017 serves the second-most popular U.S. travel destination (after New York City, according to TripAdvisor). Las Vegas is lucky that Rosemary agreed to serve as her friend’s bridesmaid and to eventually say “yes” to the persistent (and patient) Billy Vassiliadis. In 2017, Clark County School District recognized the couple’s many contributions by establishing the Billy & Rosemary Vassiliadis Elementary School.

The daughter of a soldier, Linda Lintner and her mother traveled from North Carolina to Overton, Nevada to stay with Linda's grandparents when she was only six weeks old. After her father joined the family, they moved to Las Vegas where both her mother and her father started working at the Post Office. Linda attended local elementary and middle schools in the valley, and in due time, Rancho High School. In this interview, Linda shares not only her memories of growing up in Las Vegas but also fascinating stories about the almost decade long round the world sailing journey that she and her second husband began in 1986. In the course of the decade, Linda became a qualified diver, and expert sailor, and developed a lasting appreciation for the world, its oceans - and the skills you learn when you live on a boat with one other person for so very long. Since their return, Linda has been keeping busy, volunteering many hours with local veterans homes and the church - we are fortunate that she was able to spend time with our interviewer, too, to share her memories of growing up in Las Vegas.