Portraits at UNLV honor LV women

Wednesday, May 2, 2001 | 8:44 a.m.

A dozen Southern Nevada woman have been honored in UNLV's Special Collections area of the Lied Library.

The portraits were a project of UNLV student LeeAnn Marston, a senior in the Women's Studies Program. She drew portraits of each woman and displayed them with short biographies of their activities.

The work will be on display in Special Collections for two weeks.

"I researched and eventually chose women who have been activists in a variety of ways, be it civil rights, education, politics, environmental protection or through the business sector and other community-centered organizations," Marston said. "I chose 12 women who dedicated their lives to their passions and are not always recognized for the tremendous contributions they have made to our community."

The women and their specialties are:

Catherine Bellver, UNLV Spanish professor and developer of the Women's Studies Program; Ruby Duncan, welfare rights activist; Joanne Goodwin, UNLV history professor; Mable Hoggard, first Las Vegas black teacher; Lubertha Johnson, anti-poverty activist and education advocate; Alice Key, editor of the Las Vegas Voice, the city's first black newspaper, who is also working to reopen the Moulin Rouge hotel in West Las Vegas.

Florence McClure, advocate for women in prison, who also started the Rape Crisis Center; Mary Manning, Las Vegas Sun senior environmental reporter; Sarann Preddy, the first black woman to receive a casino license in Nevada; Ellen Rose, director of Women's Studies at UNLV; Dina Titus, state Senate minority leader since 1992; and Liz Warren, activist who helped save the Las Vegas Springs and is at work to salvage the Old Spanish Trail.