Character Study
Character Study
The Golden Touch
Bodybuilder brings the gift of bronze with tanning business
May 21st, 2013
During the early days of Las Vegas’ pool-party explosion, Mervat Berry found a void in the scene: LGBT events. So in 2009 she created a gay-specific pool event, Sunkissed, at the Luxor, and later moved the party to Mandalay Bay under a new name, Hydrat. Read more »
Character Study
Meet Downtown's Ambassador of Good Chill
As head of a new Downtown watch, ex-cop Chris Curtis is ready to make sure we all keep it cool
April 9th, 2013
When we heard that the Fremont East Entertainment District was getting a Downtown Project-sponsored patrol called the Downtown Rangers and headed by an ex-cop, we imagined nothing short of a jackbooted paramilitary unit, armed with tasers and brass knuckles, marching up and down Fremont to popular indie rock and forcibly instigating “serendipitous interaction.” Read more »
Character Study
Prodigal Daughter
January 31st, 2013
As UNLV basketball players high-five and joke with the ball boys and girls before a recent game at the Thomas & Mack Center, Kreigh Warkentien can’t help smiling. She spent a good part of her childhood out on that hardwood. Kreigh Warkentien, 25, is UNLV’s director of basketball operations—one of only three women to hold such a post in Division I men’s basketball. But she hardly feels a stranger on the Rebels’ bench. Read more »
Character Study
Capitalist Conscience
December 13th, 2012
Hard-driving 31-year-old entrepreneur Justin Anderson makes no apologies for unfettered capitalism—after all, this is a man who named his contracting firm, Galt Development, for the hero of Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged. But he also understands that people get left behind—and he’s devoted a big part of his life to helping them. Read more »
Character Study
Librarian With a Future
December 6th, 2012
“We have an outstanding library system here,” says Tim McDonald—he speaks in hushed tones; eight years working in a library will do that to a person—“it’s a place to really enrich your life in a lot of ways.” Read more »
Character Study
Guiding Lights
November 8th, 2012
We heard a lot about Las Vegas’ economic miseries during the election campaign, but here, on a dirt corner near Blue Diamond Road and Rainbow Boulevard, the entrepreneurial spirit is alive and well and powered by the battery of an SUV. If you’re driving by, let off the gas pedal a bit and look closely. See that? It’s 16-year-old Andrew Choudhry. He’s using the SUV’s dome light as a flashlight, interlocking tessellation-like shapes to form a sphere. Read more »
Character Study
Through a Gem, Darkly
October 25th, 2012
Picture, if you will, a diamond grader. Hunched. Reserved. Loop nestled in his eye. Staid. Laboring in the dark, alone. Possibly Dutch. … Spiked boots. White contacts. Bat tattoos. Subdermal implants. Definitely not Dutch. Drew Beddow is much like Batman (right down to boots that could put a serious hurting on The Joker) in that the mild-mannered public face—gemologist, Bruce Wayne, whatever—is the actual mask, and the outré avocation reveals the deeper truth. Read more »
Character Study
The Crooning Counselor
September 27th, 2012
Attorney Nikolas Mastrangelo, 64, grew up in Detroit and often found himself on street corners singing harmony with his childhood friends. But then what self-respecting Motor City boy didn’t in those days of doo-wop, be-bop and rock? It never crossed his mind that music was in his future. Read more »
Character Study
Teller of Cautionary Tales
September 13th, 2012
“Look at me! Look into this old man’s big, brown, bloodshot eyes! I’m gonna tell you the truth about drugs,” shouts 76-year-old Marty Gruber to an auditorium packed with students. It’s the opening of a two-day drug awareness presentation he delivers to about 20 Clark County middle and high schools each semester. Gruber has a story to tell, and it isn’t pretty. Read more »
Character Study
Head in the Stars
August 16th, 2012
Looking into the night sky and seeing some sort of blue and pink pulsating light, you might believe you’ve spotted an unidentified flying object. But then along comes Ben McGee—the skeptic on the National Geographic Channel’s Chasing UFOs—and tells you it’s actually Venus setting. Maybe that’s why the show’s crew has dubbed the geoscientist “Dream Crusher.” Read more »
