This is Dennis McBride, today is Wednesday, March 11,1998 and I'm talking with John Warfel at Christ Church Episcopal who 's going to be leaving Las Vegas permanently March 16, so I'm very grateful that he made some time for me today. We're going to be talking about Christ Church, about Dignity and their experience here, and about Mr. Warfel himself.

As he reveals in this oral history, Roger Thomas is, among many other things, a son, a father, a brother, a husband, a student, an artist, a visionary, and a philanthropist. As the second son of Peggy and E. Parry Thomas’s five children, Roger was raised a Mormon child of privilege and civic responsibility. The banking family summered in Newport Beach, wintered in Sun Valley, and taught their children by words and deeds that it is not up for debate if you will be involved in your community; the only question is how you will apply your talents and resources to benefit your community. Roger absorbed the lessons well. As a child who struggled in school but excelled in art, he attended his last two years of high school at Interlochen Arts Academy, graduating in 1969, finally finding himself “in an environment where what I did had currency.” From there he earned his BFA from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts Boston and Studio Degree from Tufts University before returning to Las Vegas and eventually joining Steve Wynn’s team in 1981. As Executive Vice President of Design for Wynn Design & Development, he is the man in whom Steve Wynn places his trust to make real at each Wynn property the Wynn design philosophy: aim for a constituency of highly sophisticated, well-traveled, very educated people and give them a reality, a now, that is so fetching, so alluring they wish to be no place else. As he was mentored by his father and Steve Wynn, he too is mentoring those who will follow him. At Wynn, the next generation will carry forward the Wynn idea of evoca-texture, of creating “moments of experiential emotion that result in a memory so captivating and so unique that if you want to repeat that you have to come back.” At home, he collaborates with his daughter on a children’s book that has the potential to become a series; she is the illustrator, while he provides the words. Roger Thomas sat for this interview five days after his father, E. Parry Thomas, passed away in Idaho. Instead of postponing the interview to a more convenient time, Roger kept the appointment and explained, “This is for UNLV. If I’d cancelled my father would have killed me.”

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

Oral history interview with Pom Fritz conducted by Kristel Peralta and Stefani Evans on June 8, 2021 for Reflections: The Las Vegas Asian American and Pacific Islander Oral History Project. Pom talks about her family and upbringing in Udon Thani, Thailand and her immigration to the United States with her second husband, an American citizen, in 1972. She discusses living on Air Force bases in North Carolina and California before moving to Las Vegas and finding work at different hotels. Pom shares her experiences as a member, steward, and executive board representative of the Culinary Workers Union and what she recalls from the Frontier Strike. She also talks about her children and grandchildren, some of whom still live in Thailand.