JoNell Thomas grew up in a large Utah family, went to Utah State and law school at University of Utah. She moved to Nevada in 1992; first as with the Nevada Supreme Court and then as a staff attorney with a Las Vegas firm, and currently is an attorney with the Clark County Special Public Defender's office. She and her husband, Billy Logan and their twin daughters have lived in the John S. Park Neighborhood since 2001. Their residence was constructed in 1956 on a large corner lot with lots of trees and a fifty-year-old swimming pool. JoNell offers her observations on a variety of JSP events: Stratosphere's failed rollercoaster across the Strip idea; the proposed high-rise complexes; the Monorail lack of convenience to locals; effects of dropping home prices and downturn of economy; the homeless population and closing of Circle Park. She helped create the early online community called the Downtown Neighbors website which provided information regarding , part activist, part pra
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.
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.