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On March 2, 1980, collector David Mowrey interviewed Barbara Millington (born July 3rd, 1937 in Oak Creek, Colorado) at her home in Las Vegas, Nevada. In this interview, Mrs. Millington discusses moving to Las Vegas, Nevada with her family and working various jobs including at Vegas Village and becoming a bookkeeper at a construction firm. She also speaks about the changes she has seen in Las Vegas, such as how casinos were when she first came here compared to how they are now. She ends the interview talking about the need for Las Vegas to find industry outside of gaming. She discusses the need for young people to come back after going away to college to improve the city.
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Oral history interview with Nancy Rapoport conducted by Stefani Evans and Claytee White on June 30, 2025 for the Game On! An Oral History of Las Vegas Sports project. In this interview, Rapoport recalls growing up Jewish in Orange, Texas, and facing discrimination and hatred. After graduating from high school, Rapoport attended Rice University with a focus on psychology and law, and later Stanford University. At Stanford she was able to explore her interests even further, and got involved with theater production, making friends and enjoying the performances they created together. She recalls how she took up ballroom dancing after graduating and has been in love with the sport ever since. Rapoport recalls moving to Columbus, Ohio, teaching law and continuing to dance. Eventually, she moved to Las Vegas, Nevada in 2007 and began teaching at Boyd School of Law with a focus on ethics. She furthered her dancing career during this time, and remembers watching the competitions grow from making your own costumes, to now having multiple vendors for every possible costume request. She describes the intricacies of costumes, and how costumers have now created a system where you can resell costumes and trade them in for new ones. Rapoport speaks about the beauty of acceptance at ballroom competitions, and how everyone is inclusive and accepting. She relates a lot of the fear and loss she feels during competitions to her law student’s college experience, and how it makes her connect with her students further. Digital audio available, no transcript available.
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Oral history interview with Lisa Kelleher conducted by Stefani Evans, Claytee D. White, and Bethany Dayton on August 22, 2025 for Game On! The Oral History of Las Vegas Sports project. In this interview, Kelleher recalls growing up in Ohio, where her father owned the local sports store that she helped run from an early age. After graduating with a bachelor's degree in education in 1979, she got a master’s degree in physical education from the University of Arizona in 1980. This led her to her first athletics job at Oregon State University. Kelleher moved to the University of Central Florida where she met one of her future mentors, Jim Weaver. Meeting Weaver led her to eventually come to UNLV, where she worked with the athletic department to expand women's sports including women's volleyball, soccer, and golf. Kelleher also recalls watching Title IX pass nationwide, and the transition from gender-separate sports administrations to those that were more equitable. It was a difficult time that came with a lot of resistance, and she recalls witnessing segregated sports programs all the way until the 1990s. Eventually, Kelleher was let go from her athletics position at UNLV but came back as a part-time instructor, moving her way up to associate visiting professor, she now teaches first and second-year seminar classes for the college of education. She is looking forward to seeing how sports progress locally, and at a nationwide university level. Digital audio available; no transcript available.
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Interviewed by Elsa Lopez. Sam Diaz was born in Los Angeles California, but was raised in Chula Vista, California. He is a police officer with the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department and has worked for LVMPD since 2007. He has served in in the U.S. Air Force Reserves since 2008, and served in the U.S. Air Force from 2001 to 2007. Diaz describes his multi-cultural upbringing and growing up in such close proximity to the U.S.-Mexico border. He describes his passion for serving which he had since a young age. He describes his incorporation within every community he has been a part of and talks about the ways he has worked to serve the Las Vegas community since moving here in 2007. He recounts the tragic night of 1 October, the mass shooting that occurred during the Route 91 Harvest music festival on October 1st, 2017 on the Las Vegas Strip. He talks about the various changes that happened within LVMPD since 1 October, and changes that he has seen in the Latinx community throughout the Las Vegas Valley. Diaz also describes the process of adopting two children and raising a multi-racial family with his wife in Las Vegas.
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