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Polk, Leonard, Jr., 1948-
Leonard Polk Jr. was born in 1948 in Monroe, Louisiana. He and his mother moved to Las Vegas in 1949 when he was just two months old. His father worked on the Hoover Dam. Polk grew up in West Las Vegas and remembers the movement to integrate the schools in the city. As a young adult, he joined the Marines and served a tour of duty in Vietnam. Polk began to work for shows in Las Vegas after he finished his military career. He worked for the Aladdin Baghdad Theater and for the MGM Grand Hotel.
Person
Gratton, Peter V.
Peter Gratton was born in 1944 in Staten Island, New York, where his father was in the Coast Guard. However, he spent his childhood in Minnesota. From 1965 to 1969, Peter was a member of the US Marine Corps, serving a tour in Vietnam. As his military duty was ending, he learned that his parents were relocating to Las Vegas, Nevada, so he moved with them after leaving the marines.
Person
Wilkes, Roscoe
Roscoe Wilkes was born in Bonanza, Colorado on Janruary 25, 1918. He moved with his family to Pioche, Nevada in 1927. He was a lead zinc miner, a grade school teacher, and a PBX operator before he enlisted in the military during World War II. Wilkes was a prisoner of war in Romania. He got a law degree and went back to Pioche where he was a district attorney and later a judge.
Person
Hodges, James Arnold
James Arnold Hodges was born on September 18, 1931 in Kansas City, Missouri. James married Zora on April 22, 1951 and they had four children: James Arnold III, Catherine, Jeffery Cooper, and Jonathan Blake.
Hodges was enlisted in the United States Army under Military Occupation Specialty 1805 in Korea from 1952 to 1954.
Hodges is affiliated with the Nevada Test Site as a photo engineer for Edgerton, Germeshausen, and Grier, Inc.(EG&G) from 1956 to 1971.
Person
Interview with Robert Nelson, June 30, 2004
Text
Bruce Anderson oral history interview
Oral history interview with Bruce Anderson conducted by Claytee D. White on October 03, 2007 for the All That Jazz Oral History Project. In this interview, Anderson discusses his career as a jazz musician. He begins by talking about his upbringing in Evansville, Indiana, his early interest in being a musician, his family's involvement with music through their church, learning to play the piano and the clarinet from an early age, completing high school and later enlisting in the United States Air Force, where he was able to grow and extend his skills as an ensemble musician. He describes leaving the armed forces and returning to Indiana, moving soon after he received a job offer in Las Vegas, Nevada in 1973. He continues, talking about the wide range of venues he played, from conventions to high-end nightclubs, and closes by discussing the many different musicians and influences he met throughout his life.
Archival Collection