Mitzie Studio

06/24/2026

06/24/2026

That's Lt. Matthew Sandoval seated in the middle, I think he had just been assigned to planning and training at the Las Vegas Police Department. He retired from the police force and went to law school, later getting elected as Fourth Judicial District Attorney. I worked as his Chief Deputy for 8 years.
Matt had a vision and plan. He convinced the County to give him the old health center and he put his charm to work when he convinced the money people to renovate the building as the Office of the District Attorney. He moved us out of the old Courthouse and into the building and he even mentioned me in the plaque at the front door.
Matt used more charm to set up a Police Officer training and brought in a respected law professor to go over criminal procedure and law. The training was a great success and brought the DA and the police together as a team. We included all police officers in the district and scheduled time for everyone to attend.
I remember going to the State Legislature with Matt, S**c and Span doughnuts in hand making the rounds. He used to give bags of local beef jersey, a five pound roll of real bologna, cream puffs to local legislators. It worked, when we had the Santa Rosa prison riot, they funded us for the huge expense of a death penalty prosecution. Our attorney staff grew by four new positions and included computers, vehicles and a scanner to duplicate the masses of reports and documentary evidence. We scanned over 200,000 pages and provided CDs to each of nearly fifteen defense attorneys. Matt even lobbied for additional funds for the Public Defender Department for several years.
Those were the days.

06/24/2026

Can anyone guess who visited Las Vegas sometime in the mid-1950s at Our Lady of Sorrows Church? Photo by Mitzie.

06/24/2026

Here's a dreamy photo by Nappy in the early 1950s showing the Gonzales funeral home, now Rogers funeral home. I thought we needed some heat relief. I guess we missed the mid-June hail and the teasing sky of June but July is almost here and the monsoon is loading up.

06/22/2026

This was the Life Magazine shortly before the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs ended the war.
Uncle Joe had a collection of Life and National Geographic magazines in our basement. It's still there!