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Howard Heckethorn interview, February 15, 1979: transcript
On February 15, 1979, collector Richard Eitland interviewed Howard Heckethorn (born September 14th, 1922 in St. George, Utah) at Red Rock Elementary School in Las Vegas, Nevada. Mr. Heckethorn discusses going to school in the early days of Las Vegas, Nevada. He also talks about many notable teachers he had, as well as the development of the Las Vegas area.
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Erni Cabat Art Prints
The collection consists of seven numbered art prints, hand signed by Arizona artist, Erni Cabat, with accompanying certificates of authenticity. The prints were created from original gouache paintings of scenes from casino life, and distributed by Nevada Magazine to mark the 50th anniversary of gambling in Nevada in 1981.
Archival Collection
Cunningham, Don
Don Cunningham, Jazz musician and Las Vegas resident was born in 1931 in St. Louis, Missouri. As a child he was heavily influenced by blues and jazz musicians such as BB King, Count Basie, and Ella Fitzgerald. Growing up in St. Louis Cunningham worked shining shoes and cleaning steps going to white neighborhoods working inside taverns. He received saxophone lessons from a family friend and joined the band attending a segregated high school.
Person
Transcript of interview with Bob Arum by Barbara Tabach, October 20, 2016
Bob Arum is the founder and CEO of Top Rank boxing promotions company in Las Vegas, Nevada. Born in New York, Arum is a former attorney and a member of the International Boxing Hall of Fame. He promoted his first fight for Muhammad Ali in 1966 and moved Top Rank’s headquarters to Las Vegas in 1986. He has produced countless fights in the city and helped to make it “The Fight Capital of the World.” In this interview, Arum talks about the path that led him to a career in boxing promotion, from childhood in Brooklyn, New York, to education at New York University and Harvard Law School, and finally meeting Muhammad Ali while working at New York law firm. He discusses his work with Ali, as well as other boxers, including Marvin Hagler, Sugar Ray Leonard, Tommy Hearns, Roberto Durán, George Foreman, and Oscar De La Hoya, and the growth and evolution of the sport over the past forty years. In addition, Arum talks about the role of Judaism in his life, his involvement with the local Jewish community, and the importance of the Chabad movement.
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Arsya Respati oral history interview: transcript
Oral history interview with Arsya Respati conducted by Madison Chang on December 4, 2021 for Reflections: The Las Vegas Asian American and Pacific Islander Oral History Project. University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV) student Arsya Respati shares his childhood and upbringing in Jakarta, Indonesia and educational background. He discusses his studies at the international BINUS SCHOOL Simprug in Jakarta and his immigration to the United States with his younger brother to pursue the culinary arts at the William F. Harrah College of Hospitality at UNLV. Arsya Respati talks about his relationship with his parents and their daily communication, his "aunty" who has helped him adjust to American culture and homesickness, his Muslim faith and traditions, and his employment. He also shares his views on Indonesian politics and cultural diversity, and the diversity of Las Vegas.
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Interview with Edward Bonfoy Giller, April 5, 2005
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Interview with Jeannette (Jean) M. (Mactaggart) Crooks, July 21, 2004
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Valorie Vega interview, November 19, 2018: transcript
Interviewed by Laurents Bañuelos-Benitez. Barbara Tabach also participates in the questioning. Valorie J Vega was born in raised in Los Angeles County. Her father, Fred Vega, was one of the first firefighters hired in the Los Angeles County area. Vega was one of three children, and remembers spending her childhood surrounded by family. In college, Vega began studying biology only to realize that she was better suited studying Spanish. Upon completion of her undergrad, Vega went on to earn a Master's in Spanish interpretation. As a result of her studies, Vega was able to secure a job in the Court Interpreter program in Las Vegas, moving here in 1978. Her position in the interpreter program, led her to pursue a degree in law which in turn led to a successful career as a lawyer and a judge.
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Transcript of interview with Danny Lee by Claytee White and Stefani Evans, May 23, 2016
Folks who graduated Boulder City High School in 1953 and who began kindergarten there might remember being in kindergarten class with Clark D. "Danny" Lee. They would be excused for not remembering the towheaded Lee; after all, he was in Boulder City only for the first half of the year. They also would be excused for not remembering Lee because he never stayed in school once he arrived. Danny was the child whose mother faithfully brought him to class every day. And every day, as soon as his mother dropped him off, he took off and beat his mother home. Danny Lee was born in his grandparents’ house in North Las Vegas, grew up on 10 Bonneville Street, and (except for his first semester of kindergarten in Boulder City) attended Fifth Street Elementary School and Las Vegas High School, where he graduated in 1953 with Rex Bell. In 1960 he married fellow Las Vegas High grad and former Rhythmette, Dorothy Damron; they have raised four children. Here, Lee talks about the difficulties his father had finding work and supporting a family during the Great Depression-of living with relatives and moving from place to place in the small travel trailer as his father found work. He describes a hardscrabble Las Vegas, where he and other kids in in multiethnic groups found temporary work helping drovers in the stockyards or filling blocks of ice in the icehouse. He recalls working for Superior Tire during high school and for the Union Pacific Railroad in a variety of jobs after graduation and the U.S. Army-including a stint as a Union Pacific tour director. v Lee’s early kindergarten career seems an unlikely academic indicator for a man who would spend most of his adult life volunteering for and lobbying on behalf of Clark County public libraries and who the American Library Association would select as the 1990 Library Trustee of the Year. Ironically, Lee was asked to serve on the Clark County Library District board of directors to get rid of a troublesome library director. Instead, he became one of the director’s staunchest advocates. It is appropriate that Danny and his wife, Dorothy, are pictured here surrounded by library books. The native Las Vegan built a lifetime career as a State Farm Insurance salesman, but in this interview he focuses on his public library advocacy, his time as trustee for the Clark County Library District; the formation of the Las Vegas-Clark County Library District; the ambitious building program funded by $80 million in voter-approved statewide bonds; and the political wrangling in Carson City necessary to achieve these ends. Lee’s oral history complements that of his wife, Dorothy Lee, and of Charles Hunsberger, who was the “troublesome” library director at the time Lee was trustee. Lee made his living as an insurance salesman. Lee’s ability to sell a product-whether it be insurance or an $80 million bond issue-is the attribute that made Danny Lee so valuable as a trustee to the Las Vegas-Clark County Library District and consequently, to all Clark County residents who value public library services. However, his passion, and dedication, and unbowed determination earned him the Library Trustee of the Year award. As Lee closes the interview, he locks eyes with Dorothy and muses, "Let me tell you what I'm most proud of in all . . . I've been married to this lady for fifty six years now. . . . I've lived a very blessed life. Being born in my grandmother's house and having lived in little travel trailers, it's just good. It's worked. We're living like we've always wanted to live right now."
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Transcript of interview with Dorothy George by Claytee White, October 13, 2003
After serving as a nurse in World War II in Hawaii, Okinawa and Japan, Dorothy returned home to Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin. She experienced a particularly bad winter and she set out for California but stopped in Las Vegas to visit the family of her traveling companion, a girlfriend from her home town. The girlfriend returned to Wisconsin and George applied for a nursing license and got it within three days. She never left. Dorothy met her husband while working the night shift at Clark County Hospital. He would come in regularly to assist his patients in the births of their babies. Their occupations and their service in World War II drew them together in a marriage that has lasted over fifty years. From 1949 to this interview in 2003, Dorothy George has seen Las Vegas grow from a town that she loved to a metropolitan area that is no longer as friendly. She reminisces about the Heldorado parades, family picnics at Mount Charleston, watching the cloud formed by the atomic bomb tests, raising six successful children, leading a Girl Scout Troop, and working in organizations to improve the social and civic life of Las Vegas.
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