26 Notable alumni of
Olivet College
Updated:
Olivet College is 2145th in the world, 739th in North America, and 695th in the United States by aggregated alumni prominence. Below is the list of 26 notable alumni from Olivet College sorted by their wiki pages popularity. The directory includes famous graduates and former students along with research and academic staff.
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Claressa Shields
- Occupations
- boxer
- Biography
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Claressa Maria Shields is an American professional boxer and professional mixed martial artist. She has held multiple world championships in five weight classes, including the undisputed female light middleweight title in March 2021; the undisputed female middleweight title twice between 2019 and 2024; the World Boxing Council (WBC) and International Boxing Federation (IBF) female super middleweight titles from 2017 to 2018; the World Boxing Organization (WBO) female light heavyweight title and the undisputed female heavyweight title since February 2025. Shields currently holds the record for becoming a two, three, four and five division world champion in the fewest professional fights. As of October 2022, she is ranked the world's best active female middleweight by BoxRec, as well as the best active female boxer, pound for pound, by ESPN and The Ring.
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Sugar Chile Robinson
- Occupations
- jazz musicianpianistsingeractor
- Biography
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Frank Isaac Robinson, known in his early musical career as Sugar Chile Robinson, is an American jazz pianist and singer. A Detroit native, Robinson became famous as a child prodigy in the mid-1940s.
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Seth Neddermeyer
- Occupations
- physicistuniversity teachernuclear physicist
- Biography
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Seth Henry Neddermeyer was an American physicist who co-discovered the muon, and later championed the implosion-type nuclear weapon while working on the Manhattan Project at the Los Alamos Laboratory during World War II.
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Dave Cutler
- Occupations
- computer scientistengineer
- Biography
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David Neil Cutler Sr. is an American software engineer. He developed several computer operating systems, namely Microsoft Windows NT, and Digital Equipment Corporation's RSX-11M, VAXELN, and VMS.
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Scott Sigler
- Occupations
- role-playing game designernovelistpodcasterwriterscience fiction writer
- Biography
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Scott Carl Sigler is an American author of science fiction and horror and a podcaster. Scott is a New York Times No. 1 bestselling author of nineteen novels, seven novellas, dozens of short stories, and thousands of podcast episodes. He is a co-founder of Empty Set Entertainment, which publishes his young adult Galactic Football League series. He lives in San Diego.
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James McCloughan
- Occupations
- combat medic
- Biography
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James C. McCloughan is a former United States Army soldier and a Vietnam War veteran. For his actions during the war, McCloughan was approved for the Medal of Honor by President Barack Obama and Secretary of the Army Eric Fanning in December 2016. McCloughan was presented the Medal of Honor on 31 July 2017 by President Donald Trump, the first such award of Trump's administration.
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Liz Walker
- Occupations
- journalist
- Biography
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Liz Walker is an American pastor and retired journalist. She was the first black woman to co-anchor a newscast in Boston, Massachusetts, United States. She became the Pastor of the Roxbury Presbyterian Church in 2014.
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John Swainson
- Occupations
- judgepoliticianlawyer
- Biography
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John Burley Swainson was a Canadian-American politician and jurist who served as the 42nd governor of Michigan from 1961 to 1963.
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Martha Keys
- Occupations
- politician
- Biography
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Martha Elizabeth Keys was an American politician who served in the U.S. House of Representatives from Kansas from 1975 to 1979.
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Wolfgang Mieder
- Occupations
- professorparemiologist
- Biography
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Wolfgang Mieder is a retired professor of German and folklore who taught for 50 years at the University of Vermont, in Burlington, Vermont, USA. He is a graduate of Olivet College (BA), the University of Michigan (MA), and Michigan State University (PhD). He has been a guest speaker at the University of Freiburg in Germany, the country where he was born.
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Vern Ruhle
- Occupations
- baseball coach
- Biography
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Vernon Gerald Ruhle was an American professional baseball right-handed pitcher and coach, who played in Major League Baseball (MLB), primarily for the Detroit Tigers and Houston Astros for 13 seasons, from 1974 to 1986.
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Evelyn Beatrice Longman
- Occupations
- artistsculptor
- Biography
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Evelyn Beatrice Longman was an American sculptor whose allegorical figure works were commissioned as monuments and memorials, adornment for public buildings, and attractions at art expositions in the early 20th-century. She became the first woman sculptor to be elected a full member of the National Academy of Design in 1919.
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Mason Hoffenberg
- Years
- 1922-1986 (aged 64)
- Occupations
- writernovelist
- Biography
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Mason Kass Hoffenberg was an American writer best known for having written the satiric novel Candy in collaboration with Terry Southern.
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John Henry Barrows
- Occupations
- clericwriter
- Biography
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John Henry Barrows was an American clergyman of First Presbyterian Church (Chicago) and Chairman of the 1893 General Committee on the Congress of Religions (later to be known as the World's Parliament of Religions). He claimed that Abraham Lincoln had become a Christian in 1863.
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Arch Wilkinson Shaw
- Occupations
- business theorist
- Biography
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Arch Wilkinson Shaw was an American entrepreneur, publisher, editor and management theorist who applied the ideas of scientific management in the areas of offices and the tertiary sector.
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William W. Blackney
- Occupations
- politicianlawyermunicipal clerkinstructor
- Biography
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William Wallace Blackney was a politician from the U.S. state of Michigan. He served eight terms in the United States House of Representatives.
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Carl E. Mapes
- Occupations
- lawyerpolitician
- Biography
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Carl Edgar Mapes was a politician from the U.S. state of Michigan.
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August E. Johansen
- Occupations
- politician
- Biography
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August Edgar Johansen was a politician from the U.S. state of Michigan.
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Arthur B. Williams
- Occupations
- lawyerpolitician
- Biography
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Arthur Bruce Williams was a politician from the U.S. state of Michigan.
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Augusta Jane Chapin
- Occupations
- pastorpreachercivil servant
- Biography
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Augusta Jane Chapin was an American Universalist minister, educator and activist for women's rights. She was born in Lakeville, New York, the eldest of eleven children, to Almon Morris Chapin and Jane Pease. She was one of only a few women's speakers at the Parliament of the World's Religions that took place at the Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893. She had a long preaching and teaching career around the Midwestern U.S., as well as Pennsylvania, New York, Oregon, and California.
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Francis H. Dodds
- Occupations
- lawyerpolitician
- Biography
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Francis Henry Dodds, was a politician from the U.S. state of Michigan.
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James C. Harrison
- Occupations
- artist
- Biography
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James C. Harrison was a Detroit, Michigan artist based in Brooklyn, New York. His work is complex, layered and full of Jungian, religious and mystical references used to relay his internal battles and demons. Harrison drew inspiration from mythology, psychiatry, poetry, music, philosophy and artists of the past. His ever-evolving style - often equated to Cy Twombly, Robert Rauschenberg and other contemporaries - always maintained a cutting-edge quality that was anchored in his own deep philosophical tendencies.
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Ralph Thacker
- Occupations
- basketball coachAmerican football coach
- Biography
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Ralph William Thacker was an American college football and college basketball coach and athletic administrator. He served as the head football coach at Central Michigan Normal School—now known as Central Michigan University—in 1907, Nebraska State Normal School—now known as Peru State College—from 1911 to 1912, the University of Wyoming from 1913 to 1914, Lake Forest College in 1915, and Macalester College from 1922 to 1924, compiling a career college football head coaching record of 17–33–6. Thacker was also the head basketball coach at Peru Normal from 1911 to 1913, Wyoming from 1913 to 1915, and Lake Forest for the 1915–16 season, and Macalester for the 1916–1917 season. He was the athletic director at Macalester from 1922 to 1926.
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Alexander M. Campbell
- Occupations
- lawyer
- Biography
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Alexander Morton Campbell was an Indiana lawyer who served in the United States Department of Justice as Assistant U.S. Attorney General for the Criminal Division, formally from August 1948 through December 20, 1949, under Tom C. Clark as U.S. Attorney General (1945–49).
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John Michael Holzinger
- Years
- 1853-1929 (aged 76)
- Occupations
- botanistexplorer
- Biography
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John Michael Holzinger was a German-born American bryologist, expert on the bryoflora of Colorado, and third president of the Sullivant Moss Society.
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Charles J. Davis
- Occupations
- politician
- Biography
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Charles Jennings Davis was an American politician who served on the Michigan House of Representatives from 1962 to 1968.
