Oral history interview with Carey Burke conducted by Terri Goodsell on March 12, 1981 for the Ralph Roske Oral History Project on Early Las Vegas. Burke talks about his schooling at St. Joseph’s Catholic School and Rancho High School. Burke also talks about the recreational activities he took part in during schooling, such as going to Lake Mead and joining a YMCA (Young Men’s Christian Association) camp. Burke then describes the Helldorado customs and his hobby of collecting gaming memorabilia.
Thomas discusses her early life in Thistle, Utah before moving to Las Vegas, Nevada in approximately 1931, where her father worked on the Hoover Dam (Boulder Dam) construction. Thomas then talks about her early schooling in Boulder City, Nevada, her experiences as a swing and dance band musician, Block 16 in the Clark Las Vegas Townsite, and her memories of Las Vegas hotels and casinos. Other subjects Thomas covers include Las Vegas entertainers, entertainment venues, and women in the music industry during the 1930s.
Lori provides a wonderful narrative of her Judaism, her love of teaching children and her devotion to family and music. She talks about growing up in Las Vegas and becoming a bat mitzvah, a rarity for girls in 1973. Throughout her life, including the period where she moved around with her Air Force husband, she sought Jewish connections to help her feel at home no matter where she was.
Ken Hanlon oral history interview conducted by Cynthia Cicero on January 17, 2014 for the UNLV University Libraries Oral History Collection. In this interview, Hanlon discribes his background, talking about his childhood in Maryland, his early interest in music, and the opportunity to study with the same band teacher through middle and high school. He talks about starting to play a baritone horn before switching to the trombone, his early experiences playing with dance bands, starting private lessons, and eventually matriculating to the Peabody Conservatory of Music in Baltimore, Maryland. He continues, relating his five years teaching middle-school music after graduating from college, and his decision to move to Las Vegas, Nevada in 1968 to seek work as a full-time musician. After talking about some of the difficulties he faced finding work, he discusses his time in a road band and deciding to apply to teach at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV). He explains that he was hired to teach as an adjunct in 1970 and two weeks later was offered the job of department chair, a role he held for 16 years before moving into university administration. During this period he continued to perform, playing trombone in the Sands Hotel and Casino house band under the direction of Antonio Morelli. Finally, he discusses Morelli at more length, and concludes by talking about endowments for music education and the Arnold Shaw music collection at the Arnold Shaw Center at UNLV.
Jerome Jerry Jay Vallen was born and grew up in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. His father was in the restaurant business and Jerry worked for him throughout his teens and young adulthood. He and his two brothers entertained themselves during their childhood years by going to the library and reading. This was a legacy of the Depression era, when there simply wasn't any money to spare for extraneous expenses. Jerry's first jobs were bellman / assistant manager in a small hotel; auditor, and then property manager at the Pine Tree Point Club. He attended Penn State for a year (working in his dad s restaurant the whole time) and then transferred to the hotel school at Cornell University. After a stint in the armed forces during the Korean War, he returned home and used the GI bill to finish his master's degree. He started on his doctorate, but it would be 20 years before he completed it. After getting married (1950) and starting a family, Jerry and his wife Flossie realized that the restaurant business and family life did not mix well, so he decided to stay in education. Fie spent several summers at the University of Pennsylvania in their graduate school of business and in 1966, interviewed with Jerry Crawford, provost at UNLV. Jerry and his family moved out to Las Vegas in June of 1967, leaving northern New York during a blizzard and arriving four days later in southern Nevada to find tulips blooming. They decided they liked Las Vegas, found a house right away, and settled in to their new life. Jerry taught marketing in the hotel college at the beginning of his career and for several years thereafter. Boyce Phillips took the rooms division and George Bussel taught foods. Their main focus was to attract students, and they worked on making it easier tor students to transfer from out of state. Jerry also thought it was extremely important that the hotel college be independent of university administration control. Dr. Vallen has 5 or 6 books published, including 3 textbooks that he continues to update, and an oral history of the hotel college completed shortly after he retired in 1989. Today he and his wife travel and enjoy twice yearly gatherings with their family.
Oral history interview with Ann McGinley conducted by Claytee White on August 01, 2006 for the UNLV @ 50 Oral History Project. McGinley discusses her careers working as a lawyer and teaching at several law schools before coming to teach at the Boyd Law School at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas in 1999.
Oral history interview with Daisy Lee Miller conducted by Claytee D. White on March 22, 2013 for the African Americans in Las Vegas: a Collaborative Oral History Project. Miller discusses Las Vegas, Nevada’s education system and raising her children in the Westside community amidst the civil rights movement.
Oral history interview with Carl Esteban conducted by William Bailey on December 2, 2022 for the Reflections: the Las Vegas Asian American and Pacific Islander Oral History Project. In this interview, Esteban recalls growing up in Salinas, California in a predominantly Asian community before relocating with family to Las Vegas, Nevada in 2002. As a first generation Filipino America, Esteban's mother sacrificed her life in the Philippines to become the sole person in her family to immigrate to America. Esteban received his degree in Special Education and is currently pursuing to a master's degree in the same field. Esteban is currently a special education educator at the Yvonne Atkinson-Gates Center in North Las Vegas. Throughout the interview, Esteban discusses a wide range of topics spanning from his family migration story, his early childhood, his Filipino identity, Asian stereotypes as the model minority, and how his mentors helped shape him into the person he is today.
Oral history interview with Rainier Spencer conducted by Sarah Buckner on April 27, 2015 for the African Americans in Las Vegas: a Collaborative Oral History Project. In this interview, Spencer discusses his personal history and arriving to Las Vegas, Nevada in 1997. He talks about his experience as a professor at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV) and his involvement regarding diversity issues at UNLV. Spencer then discusses the novel Imitation of Life by Fannie Hurst and how he uses the issues of racism in that story to describe the notion of biological race, social race, and the idea that race is socially constructed. Later, Spencer recalls teaching civil rights courses and how he dealt with students who had misconceptions about the course subjects. Lastly, Spencer talks about his favorite pieces of literature to use in his courses.