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An unidentified man (left) stands with U. S. Nevada Senator Howard Cannon (Center), and Las Vegas Mayor Oran K. Gragson (right). The location where the photograph was taken is unknown. Oran Kenneth Gragson (February 14, 1911 – October 7, 2002) was an American businessman and politician. He was the longest-serving mayor of Las Vegas, Nevada, from 1959 to 1975. Gragson, a member of the Republican Party, was a small business owner who was elected Mayor on a reform platform against police corruption and for equal opportunity for people of all socio-economic and racial categories. Gragson died in a Las Vegas hospice on October 7, 2002, at the age of 91. The Oran K. Gragson Elementary School located at 555 N. Honolulu Street, Las Vegas, NV 89110 was named in his honor. Howard Walter Cannon (January 26, 1912 – March 5, 2002) was an American politician. He served as a United States Senator from Nevada from 1959 until 1983 as a member of the Democratic Party. In 1956, Cannon ran for the United States House of Representatives to succeed Republican incumbent Clarence Clifton Young, who ran for the U.S. Senate, but lost the Democratic primary to former Congressman Walter Baring, who then won the general election. In 1958, he was elected to the United States Senate, unseating Republican Senator George W. Malone with 58% of the vote.. Cannon was nearly defeated in his first re-election bid in 1964, holding off Republican Lieutenant Governor Paul Laxalt in one of the closest Senate elections ever.

Dr. Cheryl Radeloff was born in Dayton, Ohio, and grew up in Beavercreek, Ohio, in the '60s. She graduated from Beavercreek High School and attended Bowling Green State University, where she earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in popular culture with a minor in women's studies. Cheryl's early work history included retail, an externship with the Children's Museum of Indianapolis, and a stint as a docent. After that she volunteered for Planned Parenthood of Miami Valley in Dayton, doing information gathering. She was offered a job working as an HIV educator /counselor for the organization, and learned to assist with basic procedures and do blood draws. Ms. Radeloff received her master's degree in sociology from the University of Toledo in 1996, and heard about a research position at UNLV. She contacted Dr. Maralee Mayberry and Dr. Peg Rees of the UNLV sociology department and was hired as a graduate assistant through Promise (Projects for Interdisciplinary and Multi-cultural Study in Education). Cheryl got involved in GSA and served as both a representative and as president (1999-2001) of that organization. She sat on many committees in this capacity and also counseled graduate students and listened to their suggestions and complaints. At the same time she was doing research for her dissertation and teaching classes. Cheryl received her PhD in 2004. The American Sociological Association Job Employment Fair in 2005 provided a forum in which her knowledge and experience as a social and health policy expert could be sought out by prospective institutions.

World War II Naval officer, outdoors man, viola player John Watkins arrived in Las Vegas in 1955 fresh from his fellowship at UCLA, as the town’s first urologist. In this interview made two years before his 2011 death, Watkins talks about his schooling, his medical career, and medicine and medical practitioners in Las Vegas from the mid-1950s. He recalls how he met his wife, Frances (née) O’Rourke, and the Las Vegas places he, Frances, and their sons John and Brian lived. In particular, he describes their Desert Inn Country Club neighbors and neighborhood, where he and his family lived for fourteen years near the third tee. Watkins talks about his musical education and playing the viola in Antonio Morelli’s Christmas concerts. He also shares his experiences as a mountain climber who climbed Mount Charleston several times before deciding in his seventies to climb the highest peak in each of the fifty states. By the time of this interview, he and his son Brian had conquered forty-three state peaks. According to his obituary, he completed one more climb before he died at ninety years of age, for a total of forty-four highest state peaks. In an Appendix, Watkins shares his detailed wartime journal covering nine “terrible days” on a U.S. Naval ship in an undisclosed battle zone in the Pacific Theatre, 28 December 1944 – 6 January 1945.