Elaine and Tony Sanchez are first-generation college graduates who’ve remained deeply connected to their alma mater and their community as they built their careers and raised their children.

Elaine began her career working for elected officials before eventually leading the public relations and marketing department for Harry Reid International Airport. She has served on the Las Vegas-Clark County Library District board for 16 years and previously served on its foundation board. Likewise, Tony has volunteered with numerous community organizations and recently completed a term as chair of the UNLV Foundation Board of Trustees. Before joining NV Energy, he was in private practice as an attorney.  

Why is this recognition from UNLV Alumni Association, and the University Libraries in particular, meaningful?

Elaine: Like most people, we do things not for recognition; we do them because we believe in a cause. For us, that’s always been education and always been libraries. Libraries are intimately connected to an education.

Tony: Elaine has been on the Las Vegas-Clark County Library District’s board going on 20 years now. She’s one of the longest-serving trustees in history. So obviously our lives have been centered around libraries. That naturally led to us working with University Libraries at UNLV.

Of course, we’re both very proud UNLV graduates. So this honor is very much appreciated.

What brought each of you to UNLV, and what do you remember most about your time as students?

Tony: I was born and raised in Las Vegas and went through the Clark County School District, so going to UNLV was a natural progression for me. Like Elaine, I was the first in my family to go to college, and UNLV made a degree affordable and achievable.

Elaine: I was born and raised in California, and I had an uncle who lived in Las Vegas. When you’re young, you want an adventure, so I took my uncle’s advice to consider UNLV and it was the best decision ever. 

UNLV was special because I was able to build relationships with my professors, particularly in the political science department. Those relationships led to amazing opportunities because they were so connected to important people in the community. 

While Las Vegas is larger now than it was when we were going to school, there is still a special connectivity that UNLV has with the rest of this city. 

Looking back, how did your time at UNLV influence the careers and lives you built after graduation?

Tony: At UNLV, I had the very good fortune to have excellent professors and mentors — including political science professors Jerry Simich and Dina Titus. Both were very supportive when it came to my passion for politics and both wrote my letters of recommendation to law school.

It was professor Simich who told me to send out letters to the 50 law firms in town and offer to be a free summer intern. I ended up getting one response, and it was from a solo practitioner by the name of Eva Garcia-Mendoza, who was also a UNLV graduate. That internship confirmed for me that I wanted to go to law school and practice law. It also confirms for me how UNLV had, and still has, an ecosystem that fosters opportunity. 

Elaine: I feel like that’s the magic of UNLV. There is so much opportunity available to students — all students.  I got to experience the full breadth of the UNLV community, which really helped get me where I needed to go. My education not only made me smarter, it made me more compassionate and more aware of the systems that make a community thrive.

On a side note, I really, really loved hanging out at the library. As a student, sometimes you just need to get away, and the library was the place where I could do that. And if I wanted people around, there were group rooms available for that, too. 

Why have libraries become so meaningful to you?

Elaine: I don’t want to say that libraries are under attack, but they are very difficult to fund. And the one thing I believe is special about our local and university libraries is we have a system that protects them.

It’s important to have good people on boards who understand budgets and finances. Libraries all across the country have had to reduce their hours; it’s diminishing the accessibility that most patrons have had. So I’m extremely grateful to the people who work hard to make sure the lights stay on, that books remain available, and that the latest technology is accessible to all. 

Tony: Libraries have had to reinvent themselves, and UNLV’s have done that in a major way. I was very involved with the University Libraries’ Oral History project that Claytee White headed up. In addition to our personal contributions, the NV Energy Foundation supported that program — particularly documenting the history of the Latino community in Las Vegas. Then we helped fund the oral history project documenting the Las Vegas Asian community. 

Anyone who has experienced it knows that UNLV’s library system is world class. The facilities are absolutely amazing, they’re accessible to students, and they always offer cutting-edge programming. That’s why we’re supporters.

Why do you think it is important to preserve the stories and history of Southern Nevada?

Elaine: As Tony noted,  Las Vegas is still a really young community, when you compare us with other U.S. cities. And we always have people moving here. I truly believe that for any community — and that includes the university — to move forward in a positive way, it is crucial to know your history.

It’s also important to understand that every person and every group has a story, and those stories need to be shared by the people who lived them. That’s why oral histories are vital and why what University Libraries is doing in that regard is incredible.

As students, we read books and they’re authored by individuals who research the material. But to actually hear from individuals who comprise a group or who stand up for an issue, there is tremendous value in that. Because you’re actually going to the source of the material, as opposed to it being filtered or interpreted through someone else’s lens. And I think that is gold.

What piece of advice would you give to current UNLV students?

Elaine: Go to office hours! That is the one thing that made all the difference when I was at UNLV. 

Students might think, “Oh, I don’t really need to because my grades are good.” No, you should still go and tell your professors and your advisors what you’re interested in. Tell them who and what you want to be. Give them the opportunity to get to know you, because they are very connected to the community and to potential employers. 

UNLV is more than a brick-and-mortar place. The real UNLV is the people..

What advice do you have for your fellow alumni?

Tony: Universities play an outsized role in any town that’s fortunate enough to have one. And UNLV is uniquely positioned in that it’s a critical economic engine for Southern Nevada. Also important is what UNLV does for its students by providing that helping hand toward a successful life. That’s what public education should be about: opening the doors to anyone who wants to better themselves, become more educated, get a credential, make a better life. UNLV goes out of its way to play that role in our city.

Because UNLV has given me so much, I absolutely feel an obligation to give back, and I hope other alumni think about this in the context of the significant cuts in federal funding for higher education. It makes our support — as donors, as volunteers on advisory boards, as mentors and advocates through the Alumni Association — all that much more important.