Character Study
Character Study
Family Kitchen
November 10th, 2011
In Asian cultures,” Antika Kohengkul says, “your heart always belongs with your family.” That’s why the 33-year-old New York-based risk-management consultant is waiting tables again after 15 years. “Surprisingly, it’s like riding a bike,” she says. Read more »
Character Study
The Conductor
November 3rd, 2011
Taras Krysa, a lanky 42-year-old Ukrainian, has a serious musical mind, a loud, ready laugh and an impish wit. He grew up playing the violin and then spent his young adulthood looking for something besides music that he could do with his life. The experiment didn’t work. Today he is UNLV’s director of orchestras and the conductor of the all-volunteer Henderson Symphony Orchestra—the latter of which he has built in four years from a small civic ensemble into a cultural force in Valley. Read more »
Character Study
The Casino Clairvoyant
October 27th, 2011
When Kileen Kapri-Kohn was a child, her devout-Catholic mother held occasional chats with God and consultations with angels. She thought Mom was nuts. Kapri-Kohn grew up to be a psychic. She and her husband own a shop, Psychic Universe, tucked away in a corner of O’Sheas Casino. And she feels differently about her mother’s conversations with God. Read more »
Character Study
Paying It Forward
October 20th, 2011
Now, she makes that difference not only through her work as an insurance and investments representative with Northwestern Mutual, but also through community work. Joy Avedesian is the president of the Young Professional Women’s Club, a group that aims to help women get a jump-start on their careers. She also volunteers at youth soccer camps and hopes to travel the world building children’s confidence through soccer. Read more »
Character Study
Iconoclast Emeritus
September 8th, 2011
It’s ironic that Frank J. Lamping now plays the elder statesman role; during his career he was something of an iconoclast. In the early 1990s, then-superintendent Brian Cram visited Thurman White Middle School, where Lamping was principal. When Cram asked to see the typing room, Lamping had to admit he didn’t have one. He showed him a computer room instead. He’d also replaced the wood shop with a tech lab. Home economics wasn’t on his curriculum, either. Read more »
Character Study
Doolittle’s Got Nothing on This Guy
August 18th, 2011
When you meet up with a guy at his favorite watering hole and he starts telling you about the times he tackled an alligator, chased down a deer and snipped a lion, it’s a pretty sure bet he’s putting you on. Unless that guy happens to be veterinarian Randy Ceballos, in which case it’s all in a day’s work. Read more »
Character Study
Keeping ’em Pretty
July 21st, 2011
He’s a fast-talker and a quick wit. If he were a fighter, he’d be nimble on his feet, light, with a surprising jab. He’d have you dancing around the ring trying to keep up. As it is, though, he sits ringside with a black bag at his feet, hoping to see a good fight, hoping to see boxers mix it up, make some contact—but not get seriously hurt—because he’s a doctor. Read more »
Character Study
Octagirl
Brittney Palmer introduces UFC fans to her artwork
June 30th, 2011
Brittney Palmer is known around the mixed martial arts world for her killer physique and fresh face, but she recently introduced her ever-growing number of fans to her other body of work—the art she produces in her garage studio. Read more »
Character Study
Raising the Bar
June 16th, 2011
Attorney Paul Jucknath is so comfortable sitting behind his polished wooden desk, it would be easy to assume he had worked there for years. But instead, at 57, he fondly remembers spending more than 30 years as a professional crane hand. “It’s just raw power,” he says. “There’s nothing I love more than sitting in a 300-ton crane, punch the throttle, pick a 10- or 15-ton piece of iron up a hundred feet in the air and set it in place.” Read more »
Character Study
The Enduring Scholar
June 9th, 2011
Chris Hudgins appears: a tall man with thick white hair and a full beard. He invites you to sit across from him at a table beside his desk. You will marvel, throughout your conversation with the dean of UNLV’s College of Liberal Arts, about that beard and hair—the way they suggest some archetype: Shakespearean actor, elder statesman, Donald Sutherland? Directly behind the scholar with the plantation voice is, of course, the requisite wall of books. The tones and colors are warm and insular, contemplative, unlike what you see through the small window in the corner—the naked and jagged Las Vegas Strip cutting through a bright blue sky. Read more »
