Musical arranger and bass player Connie (Condit) Atkinson was born New Jersey in 1929. During his high school years he played in various dance bands all over New Jersey. During his four years at South Eastern College he played in small groups and big bands in the state of Louisana. He moved to Las Vegas, Nevada in the 1970s and worked in several hotel house bands and with small musical groups. He retired to Florida in 1981 and passed away in 2009 in Del Rey Beach, Florida.
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Noll Gray Thompson was born April 05, 1919 in Durham, North Carolina. Thompson was raised in a devout Christian household. He joined the United States Navy in 1941 and was stationed in San Francisco, California where he met his wife. They married in 1946 and remained married for 64 years. Thompson and his family moved to Las Vegas, Nevada in 1989. He was a poet that wrote about protests and gay love in the Las Vegas Bugle for many years. Thompson died November 13, 2010.
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Lovell Gaines was born in Louisiana and went to Louisiana State University. He moved to Reno, Nevada after serving in the Vietnam war. Gaines taught for one year and then worked for the Nevada Department of Corrections for thirty-plus years. He was extensively involved in the Reno chapter of the National Association for the Adancedment of Colored People (NAACP). Then when he moved to Las Vegas, Nevada in 1975, he ran for and became the local NAACP chapter president. He served as president from 1980 to 1982.
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