Meeting minutes include reports from committees of the board, correspondence, and balance sheets.

This ability to greet each day with a challenge has laid the foundation for a long history of success for Elaine McNamara as she has navigated through local beauty pageants, an illustrious real estate career, serving on the Las Vegas-Clark County Library board during their decade of expansion to authorship. Her story of resilience starts when she became ill at approximately seven or eight with erythema nodosum that impeded her ability to walk for five months when she started collecting pictures of movie stars. Her favorite movies were any of Roy Rogers, Abbott and Costello, Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis. Her family moved to Las Vegas, where she attended Las Vegas High School as well as UNLV majoring in elementary education and minoring in language arts. While she attended high school, she studied modeling in the evenings to help overcome her shyness and to become more outgoing. Becoming more involved with local and state beauty pageants, she met the likes of Phyllis Diller, Natalie Wood,

Robert “Bob” Agonia (1938- ) was born in Garden Grove, California on a migrant camp made up of Filipino and Mexican-American workers. Agonia’s father was a farmer on a 70 acre farm owned by the Beggs family. Agonia did not spend much time living on the migrant camp, as his father moved the family to a private residence when Agonia was four. Agonia attended school, during an era of school desegregation in Garden Grove. He recalls that his mother dealt with segregation during her schooling, being forced to attend a school miles down the road from her home despite living across the street from another school. Agonia recalls his community being very diverse with families sharing Filipino and Mexican-American heritage and his neighbors being Japanese Americans. Agonia participated in a multicultural Boy Scout troop. After high school, Agonia joined the Peace Corps and served in El Salvador. While there, Agonia worked in an agricultural research center in Santa Tecla where he helped local farmers select the proper insecticide for their crops. After the Peace Corps, Agonia had his choice of government jobs, ultimately selecting to work for the Internal Revenue Service. Agonia’s work with the IRS is what eventually brought him from California to Las Vegas. He quickly realized that the type of IRS cases he would be handling in Las Vegas were completely different from the work he was accustomed to in California. One of those unique cases required him to close the doors of a downtown casino. Since moving to Las Vegas, Agonia was critical in establishing a Las Vegas LULAC chapter, an American GI Forum, an EEO council, and the UNLV Engineering school.

On November 6, 1974, collector Jay Brewer interviewed Madeline Taylor Knighten (born July 7th, 1907 in Chanute, Kansas) at her home in Boulder City, Nevada. In the interview, Madeline Taylor Knighten discusses her life in the early days of Boulder City, Nevada. She also speaks about her husband’s work in the Green Hut Café, as well as in diamond drilling.

Meeting minutes include reports from committees of the board, correspondence, and balance sheets.

In this interview, conducted for the 50th anniversary of UNLV, Marta Sorkin discusses her family and her experience moving to California, and then to Las Vegas. Sorkin worked at the James R. Dickinson Library at UNLV and later in Lied Library, helping to implement and update various databases, and create displays on current topics. She briefly discusses her involvement with Hillel and the Jewish Federation of Las Vegas.

Marta Sorkin begins by reminiscing about her childhood in Far Rockaway Long Island, New York. She details the life her parents lived, which set an example for Marta and her two siblings. Through hard work, advanced education, and involvement in causes that were important to them, they created the template by which Marta lives her life. Marta describes her early work history, which included modeling, sales, library work, and working part time in her father's dry-cleaning plant. She and her daughter were living with her parents for a time in California, and they visited Las Vegas on weekends. It was during one of those visits that Marta met her second husband-to-be. They eventually married and decided to settle in Las Vegas. In Las Vegas, Marta enrolled at UNLV, became involved with the Preservation Association of Clark County, and volunteered at the Jewish Federation of Las Vegas. In addition, she completed her BA and MA degrees at UNLV and started working at the university's library. She details her work there, including creating display cases, working in the reference section, doing research for students and faculty, and compiling interviews. Marta also describes the fundraisers she spearheaded to help raise money for the various societies she was involved with: non-events, pancake breakfasts, dinners, and dance and band performances. In her closing comments she mentions an interview she did for Ralph Roske's class and expresses her appreciation for the career she's had at UNLV.

On February 2, 1979, collector Lorraine Owens interviewed nurseryman, Lawrence Hadland (born November 16th, 1919 in Long Island, New York) in his home in Las Vegas, Nevada. This interview covers the life and times of “Nurseryman Hadland,” and offers insights into local business, family life, jobs, and the overall community of Las Vegas. He also discusses the military and the local airport.