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Joshua Nathaniel Abbey was born in 1956 to artist Rita Deanin Abbey and author Edward Abbey. While much of Joshua?s early childhood was spent in the southwest following his father?s job, Hoboken, New Jersey, was where he attended elementary school and where his Jewish foundation took shape with his maternal grandparents. In 1964, the Abbey family moved westward again to Las Vegas. Though his father moved on and became a distant influence on Joshua?s life, his mother, Rita, remained and became an artist and art instructor at UNLV. Upon graduating from Las Vegas? Valley High School, Joshua set his sights on an acting career. His creative and industrious energies would inspire him to move about: from Los Angeles to New York and back to Las Vegas. He traveled the world, met the love of his life Yve Eiholzer-Abbey, a fellow Thespian. Eventually the couple made Las Vegas their permanent residence. In this interview, Josh recalls his life?s journey and the many career steps, friendships and accomplishments he has experienced along the path. Among Josh?s local contributions is the creation the Las Vegas Jewish Film Festival, which began in 2001. He also was founder of CineVegas Film Festival in 1998; a member of the Nevada Arts Council, City of Las Vegas Arts Commission and Director of the Desert Space Foundation, a local non-profit foundation committed to assisting emerging arts groups. He has also worked with Blue Man Group, for Jewish Family Service Agency, had a brief speaking part in the movie, The Natural, and been an activist opposing the Yucca Mountain waste repository-and much more. Joshua is a graduate of University of Nevada Las Vegas (Theater Arts 1980) and American Film Institute (1993).

Interview with Arthur "Art" Marshall by Claytee White on February 11, 2014. In this interview, Marshall

Arthur Marshall was born in 1929 in Cleveland, Ohio. He met his wife, Jayn in 1953, and the couple moved to Las Vegas where she already lived with her family. Art joined his father-in-law in the family's retail clothing business. Art Marshall took over the retail clothing business with his brother-in-law, Herb Rousso, and expanded operations as Marshall-Rousso stores. Art quickly became very active in the Jewish community upon arriving in Las Vegas. He served as president at Temple Beth Sholom, and worked with other Jews in the city, many who owned and managed the hotels at the time, to build a strong Jewish community in Las Vegas. He served as the chairman of Nevada State Bank and spent 12 years on the Nevada Gaming Commission.

Interviewed by Irene Rostine. Janet Savalli's family moved from Phoenix, Arizona, to Henderson, Nevada, in 1945 so her father could work at the Basic Magnesium plant. A few years later, when she was a junior in high school, Janet began her 46-plus years career at the Southern Nevada Telephone Company, which eventually became Sprint. During that period she held several positions, including operator, supervisor, schedule clerk, trainer, investigator, and community relations coordinator. Janet also talks about the atomic bomb testing at Camp Mercury and Camp Desert Rock near Las Vegas. Janet credits the atomic bomb testing with jump-starting the second wave of growth Las Vegas experienced following World War II. This growth had a particular influence on the telecommunications industry's need to expand in Las Vegas.

Interviewed by Irene Rostine. Hazel Hedges moved from Kansas City to Las Vegas with her husband and son in 1952. She worked briefly as a waitress in the dining room at the Thunderbird and then became a stay at home mom until her son was in junior high. Then after she went to real estate school, she went to work in commercial real estate at Bond Realty. After that, she passed her brokers exam and transferred to Parkway Realty where she sold land. Her primary success in real estate came from selling houses and investing in land and residential properties personally. After leaving Parkway Realty, Hazel went to work for the real estate office Deshoor, Fair, and Davis, which she eventually bought and renamed Southside Realty. Eventually her son joined her, and they operated Hedges and Wade Realty with two offices, one on each side of town. Hazel also did volunteer work including the Assistance League Las Vegas' Operation School Bell Program, which provides clothing for area school children in need.

Kevin T. Orrock, president of Summerlin and vice president of Master Planned Communities for The Howard Hughes Corp., has come full circle. Born in Pioche, Nevada, he spent his early years in the San Francisco Bay area and in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Graduating from a small liberal arts college, he arrived in Las Vegas in 1974 with a degree in accounting and a teaching credential, finding work in the Desert Inn accounting department. Howard Hughes owned the Desert Inn, so from 1974 Orrock has consistently been in the employ of Howard Hughes, Summa Corporation, and Howard Hughes Corporation. Orrock later earned his M.B.A. at UNLV. In this interview, Orrock focuses on Summerlin, the 22,000-acre, award-winning, master-planned community on the west side of the Las Vegas Valley. He discusses Summerlin’s physical layout, its history, its development, and its future. He specifically credits Summa Corporation’s early visionaries John Goolsby and Will Lummis for having the foresight to sell some of the company’s land in order to build the financial foundation that, in turn, permitted Summerlin’s fifty-year development plan. He also talks about the development and future of Downtown Summerlin; its balance of private, charter, and public schools; and the ways the company selects its residential builders.

Joyce Moore's family moved to Las Vegas from Chicago in 1953, when she was eight years old. She attended Rancho High School, married and had three daughters, and currently lives in Las Vegas. Joyce's father was in the gaming industry and her mother was a nurse. Growing up in Las Vegas meant going to shows with her mother, spending summer days in the pool at the Showboat Hotel, and riding horses to the Last Frontier. While a teenager at Rancho High school, Joyce worked at several movie theaters including the Huntridge, went to school dances and marched in the Hellodorado Parade. After her divorce, Joyce returned to work to support herself and her children, first at the Daily Fax then later on the Strip at the Aladdin and Circus, Circus doing a variety of office and accounting jobs. As a lark she and a friend applied to work as cocktail waitresses at the MGM; she was hired and spent the next five years in a job that was by turns interesting, exhausting, frustrating and fun. This interview covers several periods of Joyce's life - her childhood, teen years, and early adult life - and what it was like to grow up, live and work in Las Vegas in from the mid-1950s until the mid-1970s.

Rabbi Felipé Goodman was born in 1967 and raised in an established Conservative Jewish community in Mexico City. This community would financially and emotionally support his seminary education was in New York City at the Jewish Theological Seminary. As a young rabbi eager for his own congregation, he became restless in 1998 and began his search for options which lead him to a listing for a rabbi at Las Vegas’s oldest synagogue, Temple Beth Sholom. During this oral history, Rabbi Goodman weaves a fascinating story of chance and good fortune of his interview process and visit to Las Vegas—including the generous parting gift of Snapple—and his surprising decision to take the position. Now, almost two decades later, he reflects on several of his accomplishments in addition to being Temple Beth Sholom’s longest serving rabbi to date. He mentions the opening of the synagogue’s move to a beautiful new building in Summerlin, where they were able to include a mikvah for conversions. He shares how he and Rabbi Jeremy Wiederhorn, formerly of Midbar Kodesh Temple, worked together to establish chevra kadisha for burying Jewish people. As a member of the Rabbinical Assembly he was especially please to help host the 2011 annual conference in Las Vegas after years of persuasion. Israeli political leader Tzipi Livni was the keynote speaker. Rabbi also speaks about his passion for Israel, AIPAC and the Conservative Movement in Judaism.