Dr. Donald Baepler was born in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada in July of 1932. The family moved to Springfield, Illinois in 1936, where his father was president of Concordia Seminary. Donald decided at the age of seven that he wanted to pursue a Ph.D. in ornithology, not an unusual goal in his family. By the time he graduated high school, he knew that he wanted to attend Carlton College in Minnesota to study under Olin Sewall Pettingill. He followed world-famous ornithologist and artist George Sutton to Michigan and then to Oklahoma to complete his doctorate.
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Louis Alfred Conner Sr. was born September 16, 1942 to Hazel Blalark and Clarence Conner in Tallulah, Louisiana. Louis was an activist who gave tirelessly of his time and resources to his community. He was the first African American Food and Beverage Director in a Las Vegas casino. He served as a Commissioner of the Las Vegas Housing Authority, President of the North Las Vegas Chamber of Commerce, President of the Nevada Black Chamber of Commerce and a board member for the Las Vegas Boys and Girls Club.
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Leon Carter, Sr. migrated to Las Vegas in 1942 at 12 years of age. After attending elementary school on the Westside, he enrolled for high school at Las Vegas High. Because of his schedule, he played baseball with the city team - The Cowboys. Baseball skills let him to play in Canada and Mexico. Later, when he returned to Las Vegas, his job skills in drafting and carpentry took him to the Nevada Test Site and then into the construction industry. When that did not yield enough income, He entered the gaming industry as a dealer.
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Born in Taiwan, naturalized citizen and District Court Judge Jerry Tao's family exemplifies the ways political systems affect people on the ground. Tao's grandfather wrote speeches for Chiang-Kai-shek until the mid-1960s, when Mao Zedong's Communist party began purging leaders of the previous regime. As a high-ranking government official, Tao's grandfather left China under threat of death and settled in Taiwan.
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Born in Da Nang, Vietnam, in 1973, Brendan Ly was one of seven children. Because his father fought with the Americans, the family was in danger daily. They escaped by boat in 1978-79 to a refugee camp in Hong Kong, then to Raleigh, North Carolina, for one year and finally to San Jose, California, where Brendan grew up. From the time he was eight years old, Brendan contributed to the family income picking fruit and vegetables in the summers and doing back-of-the-house labor in catering and retail.
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