by Patrick W. Carlton, Ph.D.
Professor of Educational Leadership
College of Education
University of Nevada Las Vegas
Interviewer/Coordinator

Listing of Interviews
Joseph Buckley
Wing Fong
Pat Goodall
Harold Boyer
Ty Hilbrecht
Jim Jones
Bert Purdue
J.A. Tiberti
David Welles
Kenneth Miller
Donald Aikin
 

During the late 1990’s interest grew within the Rotary Club of Las Vegas in capturing the experiences and recollections of prominent Rotarians who have contributed to the development of Las Vegas. Under the leadership and financial sponsorship of Dr. Harold L. Boyer, a well-known local medical practitioner, a historical committee was formed to investigate the possibility of implementing an oral history project. With the guidance of Dr. Peter Michel, Director of Special Collections, Ms. Claytee White, a professional staff member in the library, initiated a series of interviews in pursuit of project goals. With the assistance of several UNLV faculty members, including the writer, about a dozen interviews had been collected by late 2003.

The interviews are wide-ranging in nature, covering a great deal of economic, social, professional and personal material as related by the project participants. Emphasis has been placed upon the operations and contributions of the Rotary Club of Las Vegas, founded in 1923 and serving the community continuously since that time. Selection of those initially interviewed has been focused upon longer-serving club members, as a way of insuring the continued accessibility of those involved. (Oral Historians adhere to the practice of “interviewing oldest persons first”!) This practice has proven to be appropriate, in that two of the early interviewees, Dr. Boyer and Mr. Buckley, had died by December, 2003.

While it is planned to continue the interview series for the next several years, it was felt desirable to make the materials collected to date available to the Rotary members and the public at large at an early time. The 2003-4 club President, Katherine J.  Dalvey-Bonar consulted with her computer webmaster, Bert Blevins, and determined that broadest possible distribution/access could be achieved through use of the internet. It was decided to upload a number of the initial interviews into a special section of the club’s internet website during early 2004, with additions to follow from time to time.  The materials presented in this collection are the result of that decision.

The original transcripts of these interviews and others to follow, along with the audiocassettes on which they were captured, are permanently housed in the UNLV Oral History Research Center, Special Collections Department, the Lied Library. 

All transcription was accomplished by the staff of that department.  Ms. Claytee White is the Director of the Center. She can be reached at: 895-2234 or by e-mail at: claytee.white@unlv.nevada.edu.

The writer, Prof. Patrick Carlton, has been involved with the project since early 2001, when Dr. Michel asked him to assume duties as lead Interviewer/Coordinator for the project. Since that time Dr. Carlton, himself a local Rotarian, has worked with the Special Collections staff in collecting materials for the interview project, part of the Old Las Vegas Oral History Collection.  The work, in his words, “has been arduous but rewarding, offering significant insights into the lives of important contributors to progress and development in Las Vegas.”