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Bert Hood is celebrated in Las Vegas's gay history for his ownership of the Red Barn, one of our most famous gay bars. This is another of those serendipitous interviews I've conducted with someone I very much wanted to interview but didn't know how to find. Bert's in Las Vegas from Oklahoma City for just a short while visiting old friends, and I was lucky enough to have found him through Bill Schafer, president of the Southern Nevada Gay and Lesbian Historical Society. I want to thank you, Bert, for donating these two hours of your vacation time to me so I can preserve your stories for the gay community.

In this interview, members of Midbar Kodesh discuss how they each became involved in the synagogue, and how the congregation formed in the mid-1990s. Some of the narrators grew up in Las Vegas and talk about the growth of the town and being former members of Temple Beth Sholom.

Steven Eisen (1966 - ) is the oldest son of Barry and Beverly Eisen, who were part of the migration of Jews from St. Louis to Las Vegas in the 1960s. He is married to Stacy Fisher and the older brother to Andrew and Robert Eisen. They are members of an early group of born-and-raised Las Vegans. Growing up Jewish, he became a bar mitzvah, belonged to B?nai B?rith Youth Organization. In this oral history interview, Steve recalls enjoyable stories of growing up in Las Vegas and humorous anecdotes of mistaken identity since the three brothers bear such strong physical resemblances. Today he finds himself enjoying his career as CEO of the Children?s Heart Center since 2001 and talks about the success and reputation of the pediatric medical group. It was his first job as a fourteen year old helping Theodore Manos and Michael Cherry during the MGM fire litigations where he learned about the legal world and being organized as a path to success in whatever he might pursue. Steve graduated from University of Missouri, attended law school at Washington University in St. Louis, and received his business degree from UNLV. Throughout the interview, he recalls the steady and strong involvement of his parents in their sons? educations. He also describes their active connection with the Jewish community and organizations. Steve?s wife Stacy is a professor in physical therapy at Touro University.

Dr. Tom Wright was born and grew up in Illinois. His father finished his PhD in Chicago and then taught at Illinois College in Jacksonville. His mother suffered from arthritis and was told to seek a warmer climate, so John Wright packed up his family and moved to Las Vegas. Tom was 14, ready for high school, and his two brothers were elementary school age. Tom attended Las Vegas High School, which was close to the Crestwood community where the family had purchased their first home. He remembers that UNLV had no buildings when his dad first started teaching there. Instead, he conducted class in high school classrooms and church Sunday school rooms. Dr. Wright started off at a community college as a Geology Major, but a class with Bud Poland convinced him that history was his passion. He transferred to Pomona to continue his bachelor's degree. He spent his junior year in Peru on a study-abroad program, and that experience made him a Latin Americanist. The information he gath

Architect Paul Senzaki, and artist-illustrator Charlie White III recall their experiences of working in Las Vegas: Paul on Treasure Island, The Palms, Fremont Street Experience, and World Market Center and Charlie on Treasure Island and its successor, TI; New York New York. Architectural historian Alan Hess, who is an expert on Las Vegas architecture, offers historical context and asks pertinent questions. While this interview touches on several iconic Las Vegas buildings, the conversation mostly details why and how Steve Wynn's Treasure Island involved the labors of artists, illustrators, art directors, and designers of stage and screen as well as the those of architects, contractors, planners, and subcontractors.

As Jelindo Tiberti describes his childhood as the youngest of five children growing up on 15th Street, he chronicles a seemingly idyllic time of playing with a large group of neighborhood friends, of doing outdoor chores with his brothers, of spending summers at the family cabin in Utah, of high school dances, and as a high school junior, of meeting Sandee, whom he would marry within two months after they both graduated from the University of Southern California. He talks about his parents: about working for and with his namesake father; about taking his mother to her daily radiation treatments, about cooking his mother's recipes, and about his mother making sure her youngest child earned his college degree before he married. He explains the ubiquity of fencing and shares his experience of taking over Tiberti Fence Company, of retiring and selling the company, and of starting over with Red Star Fence Company. Throughout, Tiberti speaks to living with dyslexia: of attending an after-s