59 Notable alumni of
University of Missouri - Kansas City
Updated:
The University of Missouri - Kansas City is 1028th in the world, 377th in North America, and 355th in the United States by aggregated alumni prominence. Below is the list of 59 notable alumni from the University of Missouri - Kansas City sorted by their wiki pages popularity. The directory includes famous graduates and former students along with research and academic staff.
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Harry S. Truman
- Occupations
- judgepoliticiandiaristmilitary officerbusinessperson
- Biography
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Harry S. Truman was the 33rd president of the United States, serving from 1945 to 1953. A member of the Democratic Party, he previously served as a United States senator from Missouri from 1935 to 1945 and briefly as the 34th vice president in 1945 under Franklin D. Roosevelt. Assuming the presidency after Roosevelt's death, Truman implemented the Marshall Plan in the wake of World War II to rebuild the economy of Western Europe and established both the Truman Doctrine and NATO to contain the expansion of Soviet communism. He proposed numerous liberal domestic reforms, but few were enacted by the conservative coalition that dominated the Congress.
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Rick Scott
- Occupations
- lawyerbusinesspersonpoliticianentrepreneur
- Biography
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Richard Lynn Scott is an American attorney, businessman, and politician who has been the junior United States senator from Florida since 2019. A member of the Republican Party, he was the 45th governor of Florida from 2011 to 2019.
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John Carmack
- Occupations
- aerospace engineerprogrammerchief technology officerbusinesspersonvideo game developer
- Biography
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John D. Carmack II is an American computer programmer and video game developer. He co-founded the video game company id Software and was the lead programmer of its 1990s games Commander Keen, Wolfenstein 3D, Doom, Quake, and their sequels. Carmack made innovations in 3D computer graphics, such as his Carmack's Reverse algorithm for shadow volumes.
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Danny Carey
- Occupations
- jazz musiciandrummersongwriter
- Biography
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Daniel Edwin Carey is an American musician and songwriter who is the drummer for the progressive metal band Tool. He has also contributed to albums by artists such as Zaum, Green Jellö, Pigface, Skinny Puppy, Adrian Belew, Carole King, Collide, Meat Puppets, Lusk, and the Melvins.
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Edie McClurg
- Occupations
- television actorstage actorsingerfilm actorvoice actor
- Biography
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Edith Marie McClurg is an American actress and comedian. She has played supporting roles in the films Carrie (1976), Ferris Bueller's Day Off (1986), and Elvira: Mistress of the Dark (1988), and bit parts in Cheech and Chong's Next Movie (1980), Mr. Mom (1983), Back to School (1986), Planes, Trains and Automobiles (1987), A River Runs Through It (1992), Natural Born Killers (1994), and Flubber (1997).
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Connor Trinneer
- Occupations
- film actorstage actortelevision actor
- Biography
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Connor Wyatt Trinneer is an American film, stage, and television actor. He is best known for his roles as Charles "Trip" Tucker III on Star Trek: Enterprise, Michael on the series Stargate Atlantis, and Professor Moynihan on the web series Guilty Party Japan.
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Sharice Davids
- Occupations
- mixed martial arts fighterpoliticianlawyer
- Biography
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Sharice Lynnette Davids is an American attorney, former mixed martial artist, and politician serving as the U.S. representative from Kansas's 3rd congressional district since 2019. A member of the Democratic Party, she represents a district that includes most of the Kansas side of the Kansas City metropolitan area, including Kansas City, Overland Park, Prairie Village, Leawood, Lenexa, and Olathe.
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Clarence M. Kelley
- Occupations
- special agent
- Biography
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Clarence M. Kelley was an American law enforcement officer. He served as the Chief of the Kansas City Police Department in Kansas City, Missouri, from 1961 to 1973, and as the second director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation from 1973 to 1978.
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Charles Evans Whittaker
- Occupations
- judgelawyer
- Biography
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Charles Evans Whittaker was an Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court from 1957 to 1962. After working in private practice in Kansas City, Missouri, he was nominated for the United States District Court for the Western District of Missouri. In 1956, President Dwight D. Eisenhower nominated Whittaker to the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit. In 1957, he won confirmation to the Supreme Court of the United States, thus becoming the first individual to serve as a judge on a federal district court, a federal court of appeals, and the United States Supreme Court. During his brief tenure on the Warren Court, Whittaker emerged as a swing vote. In 1962, he had a nervous breakdown and resigned from the Court. After leaving the Supreme Court, he served as chief counsel to General Motors and frequently criticized the Civil Rights Movement and the Warren Court.
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Mary Colleen Daly
- Occupations
- economist
- Biography
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Mary Colleen Daly is an American economist, who became the 13th President and chief executive officer of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco on October 1, 2018. She serves on the Federal Reserve's rate-setting Federal Open Market Committee on a rotating basis. Previously, Daly was the Executive Vice President and Director of Research of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, which she joined as an economist in 1996.
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Bob Carpenter
- Occupations
- sports commentator
- Biography
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Bob Carpenter is an American sportscaster and current television play-by-play announcer for Major League Baseball's Washington Nationals on MASN. He was born in St. Louis, Missouri, and graduated from William Cullen McBride High School. Carpenter attended the University of Missouri-St. Louis, and later graduated with honors from the University of Missouri-Kansas City with a bachelor's degree in Radio-TV-Film.
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Courtney Frerichs
- Occupations
- athletics competitor
- Biography
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Courtney Frerichs is an American middle-distance runner and steeplechase specialist from Nixa, Missouri, She is a three-time silver medalist in the 3000 meters steeplechase capturing silver at the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games, the 2017 World Championships in London and at the 2018 World (Continental) Cup in Ostrava. In 2021, she became the first American woman to run under nine-minutes in a women’s 3000-meters steeplechase event with a time of 8:57.77; establishing an American and Area record. She is a two-time Olympian making the US team in 2016 and 2020. In both of her Olympic Trials she finished second to US National Champion, Emma Coburn.
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Donald Fehr
- Occupations
- trade unionist
- Biography
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Donald Martin Fehr is a former American sports executive. He was the fifth executive director of the NHL Players Association from 2012 to 2023. He became nationally prominent while serving as the executive director of the MLB Players Association from 1983 to 2009.
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Juris Hartmanis
- Enrolled in the University of Missouri - Kansas City
- In 1951 graduated with Master of Arts in mathematics
- Occupations
- computer scientistmathematicianuniversity teachereditor
- Biography
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Juris Hartmanis was a Latvian-born American computer scientist and computational theorist who, with Richard E. Stearns, received the 1993 ACM Turing Award "in recognition of their seminal paper which established the foundations for the field of computational complexity theory".
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Esther George
- Occupations
- banker
- Biography
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Esther L. George is the former president and chief executive of the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City from 2011 until 2023.
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Trey McKinney-Jones
- Enrolled in the University of Missouri - Kansas City
- Studied in 2008-2010
- Occupations
- basketball player
- Biography
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Trey McKinney-Jones is an American professional basketball player for Gunma Crane Thunders of the B.League. He played college basketball for the UMKC Kangaroos (now known as the Kansas City Roos) and the Miami Hurricanes.
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Mark Funkhouser
- Occupations
- politician
- Biography
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Mark Funkhouser is an American academic, author, and former politician who served as the 53rd mayor of Kansas City, Missouri, serving one four-year term from May 1, 2007, until May 2, 2011. Prior to serving as the city's mayor, Funkhouser served as Kansas City's city auditor. Currently, he serves as the publisher of Governing magazine. He is also the author of the blog, "Bring on the Funk, and the book, Honest, Competent Government: The Promise of Performance Auditing. In 2016, Funkhouser was elected as a fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration.
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Brian Birdwell
- Occupations
- military officerpolitician
- Biography
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Brian Douglas Birdwell is an American politician who has served in the Texas Senate for District 22 since 2010. He is a survivor of the September 11, 2001 attacks against The Pentagon.
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Juliana Rotich
- Occupations
- international forum participantsocial entrepreneur
- Biography
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Juliana Rotich is a Kenyan information technology professional, who has developed web tools for crowdsourcing crisis information and coverage of topics related to the environment. She is the co-founder of iHub, a collective tech space in Nairobi, Kenya, and of Ushahidi, open-source software for collecting and mapping information. She is a TED Senior Fellow.
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Jolie Justus
- Occupations
- politicianlawyer
- Biography
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Jolie L. Justus is an American lawyer and politician from Missouri. A Democrat, she was a member of the Missouri State Senate representing the 10th Senatorial District in Kansas City, serving as the Missouri Senate Minority Leader in her final two years.
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Antoine Rozner
- Occupations
- golfer
- Biography
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Antoine Rozner is a French professional golfer who plays on the European Tour. He has won three times on the tour, including wins at the Golf in Dubai Championship in December 2020 and the Commercial Bank Qatar Masters in March 2021. He has also won twice on the second-tier Challenge Tour.
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Charles Wheeler
- Enrolled in the University of Missouri - Kansas City
- 1946-1950 graduated with master's degree
- Occupations
- politician
- Biography
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Charles Bertan Wheeler Jr. was an American physician and politician who served as a Missouri state senator and as mayor of Kansas City, Missouri from 1971 to 1979, in addition to having held other elected offices.
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Karen McCarthy
- Enrolled in the University of Missouri - Kansas City
- In 1976 graduated with Master of Arts
- Occupations
- politicianteacher
- Biography
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Karen McCarthy was an American educator and politician. She served as the U.S. representative for the fifth district of Missouri from 1995 to 2005.
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Rick Roeber
- Occupations
- athletics competitorpolitician
- Biography
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Rick Roeber is an American politician and long-distance runner. He was expelled from the Missouri House of Representatives in April 2021, as a result of an investigation of allegations that he had physically, mentally, and sexually abused his own children.
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Martha Keys
- Occupations
- politician
- Biography
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Martha Elizabeth Keys is an American retired politician who served in the U.S. House of Representatives from Kansas from 1975 to 1979.
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Roger Garrison
- Occupations
- economist
- Biography
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Roger Wayne Garrison is an American professor of economics at Auburn University, and an adjunct scholar of the Ludwig von Mises Institute.
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Sunny Sanwar
- Enrolled in the University of Missouri - Kansas City
- In 2019 graduated with Doctor of Philosophy
- Occupations
- painterenvironmentalistengineer
- Biography
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Sahibzada Sanwar Azam Sunny is a Bangladeshi-born American artist, environmental activist and entrepreneur. He became fluent in multiple languages and is one of the youngest artists to have a solo exhibition at the National Art Gallery with work in permanent collection at the Liberation War Museum. He finished four years of American high school in eight months with honours and was a college senior by the age of eighteen, teaching university courses in engineering at the age of 21.
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Janet E. Helms
- Occupations
- psychologist
- Biography
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Janet E. Helms is an American research psychologist known for her study of ethnic minority issues. A scholar, author and educator, she is most known for her racial identity theory that is applied to multiple disciplines, including education and law. She received the 2006 Award for Distinguished Contributions to Education and Training in Psychology from the American Psychological Association.
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Ronnie L. White
- Occupations
- judgelawyer
- Biography
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Ronnie Lee White is a United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri and a former Missouri Supreme Court judge.
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Benjamin Harrison
- Biography
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Benjamin Leslie Harrison was an officer in the United States Army who contributed to the tactics of modern airmobile warfare involving the integration of helicopters with infantry and armor forces for both rapid deployment and subsequent support. General Harrison was an early advocate, theorist and practitioner of these tactics, commonly referred to as "air assault." They are analogous to the revolutionary use of armor and air support with infantry in blitzkrieg warfare in early World War II, and are critical to modern military doctrine as practiced in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan.
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Reggie Hamilton
- Occupations
- basketball player
- Biography
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Reginald Lamont Hamilton, Jr. is an American professional basketball player. In 2011–12, his senior year at Oakland University, Hamilton averaged 26.2 points per game to lead all of NCAA Division I in scoring. He scored 2,188 points between his time spent at UMKC and Oakland.
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Alfred Oko Vanderpuije
- Enrolled in the University of Missouri - Kansas City
- In 1995 graduated with master's degree in education
- Occupations
- politicianeducatorcivil servant
- Biography
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Alfred Oko Vanderpuije is a Ghanaian educationist and politician who currently serves as a member of parliament. He is currently the member of parliament for Ablekuma South Constituency in the Greater Accra Region of Ghana.
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Susan Montee
- Occupations
- politician
- Biography
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Susan Montee is an American lawyer and politician from the U.S. state of Missouri who served as the 35th State Auditor of Missouri. She won the election in 2006 Missouri State Auditor Election and was sworn into her position on January 4, 2007. She was the third woman in succession to serve as State Auditor of Missouri. She succeeded then-U.S. Senator Claire McCaskill. Montee is a member of the Democratic Party. She was defeated in the 2010 election by Tom Schweich. In 2011 Montee was elected the Chair of the Missouri Democratic Party, which she stepped down from later that year to run for Lieutenant Governor. Susan defeated seven other candidates in the August, 2012 Missouri Democratic Primary for Lieutenant Governor of Missouri. She lost the general election on November 6, 2012 to the Republican incumbent, Peter Kinder.
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Stephen R. Bough
- Occupations
- judgelawyer
- Biography
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Stephen Rogers Bough is a United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Western District of Missouri.
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Charles Bruffy
- Occupations
- conductorvoice teacherchoir directorsinger
- Biography
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Charles Bruffy is an American choral conductor. He is artistic director of the Kansas City Chorale in Kansas City, Missouri, and is Chorus Director of the Kansas City Symphony. He lives in Kansas City.
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Gary A. Fenner
- Occupations
- judgelawyer
- Biography
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Gary August Fenner is a senior United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Western District of Missouri.
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Ross Rizley
- Enrolled in the University of Missouri - Kansas City
- In 1915 graduated with Juris Doctor
- Occupations
- politicianjudgelawyer
- Biography
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Ross Rizley was an American politician and United States Representative from Oklahoma and a United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Western District of Oklahoma.
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Mark A. Ediger
- Born in
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United States - Occupations
- physician
- Biography
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Mark A. Ediger is a retired lieutenant general in the United States Air Force who was the twenty-second Surgeon General of the United States Air Force. Prior to that he served as the Deputy Surgeon General.
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Hilary A. Bush
- Occupations
- politicianlawyer
- Biography
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Hilary Ashby Bush was a Democratic Party politician who was Jackson County, Missouri prosecutor in the 1940s and 1950s, and the 37th lieutenant governor from 1961 to 1965, serving under Governor John M. Dalton. Bush played an influential role in the merger of the University of Kansas City with the University of Missouri system to form the University of Missouri-Kansas City.
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Edward H. Moore
- Occupations
- lawyerpoliticianrancherfarmer
- Biography
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Edward Hall Moore was a United States senator from Oklahoma from 1943 to 1949.
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James C. King
- Years
- 1946-.. (age 78)
- Enrolled in the University of Missouri - Kansas City
- Graduated with Master of Science in public administration
- Occupations
- military officer
- Biography
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James C. King is a retired United States Army Lieutenant General. A career Military Intelligence officer, he served on active duty from 1968 to 2001. At the time of his retirement he was serving as the Director of the National Imagery and Mapping Agency, one of the intelligence agencies of the United States Intelligence Community.
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William J. Randall
- Occupations
- politicianjudgelawyer
- Biography
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William Joseph Randall was a member of the United States House of Representatives. He was a member of the Democratic Party from Missouri.
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Allan J. Katz
- Occupations
- diplomat
- Biography
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Allan Jack Katz is a former City Commissioner of Tallahassee and American Ambassador to Portugal. President Barack Obama nominated Allan to be Ambassador of the United States of America to the Portuguese Republic in November 2009. Ambassador Allan Katz is a distinguished professor with the University of Missouri Kansas City Bloch School's Department of Public Affairs and the College of Arts and Science's Political Science Department. He is the founder of the American Public Square, an organization using civil discourse to bridge the partisan divide. In 2019, American Public Square announced a new partnership with William Jewell College, changing its name to American Public Square at Jewell, and Ambassador Katz was brought on as Distinguished Professor in Residence in William Jewell's Department of Political Science. Katz is a lawyer by profession who has been active in local and national government and politics for many years. He has been a member of the Democratic National Committee where he helped draft the party's platform for the 2008 Democratic National Convention. Ambassador Katz holds a B.A. from the University of Missouri-Kansas City and a J.D. from the American University Washington College of Law in Washington D.C. He was raised in a Jewish family in St. Louis, the son of Fred and Eileen Katz. His father escaped Nazi Germany for the United States where he worked as a salesman; and was one of the original founders of the St. Louis Holocaust Museum. Katz graduated from University City High School.
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Narong Prangcharoen
- Occupations
- pianistuniversity teachercomposer
- Biography
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Narong Prangcharoen is a Thai composer of contemporary music. His compositions have won him the Guggenheim Fellowship, the Barlow Prize, and the Alexander Zemlinsky International Composition Competition Prize. He is the founder of Thailand International Composition Festival (TICF). Currently, he serves as Dean of the College of Music, Mahidol University in Thailand, as well as composer-in-residence for Thailand Philharmonic Orchestra and Pacific Symphony in Orange County, California. His scores for orchestra and wind ensemble are published exclusively by Theodore Presser Company.
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Steven D. Waldman
- Years
- 1951-.. (age 73)
- Occupations
- anesthesiologist
- Biography
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Steven D. Waldman is a pain management specialist, author and a pioneer in the sub-specialty of interventional pain management. He holds joint academic appointments as Professor of Anesthesiology and Professor of Medical Humanities and Bioethics at the University of Missouri–Kansas City School of Medicine where he currently serves as Vice Dean and Chairman of the Department of Medical Humanities and Bioethics.
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David Schafer
- Years
- 1955-.. (age 69)
- Occupations
- installation artist
- Biography
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David Schafer is an American visual and sound artist based in Los Angeles, whose practice integrates aural, textual, graphic and sculptural elements to create installations, public art and individual works that critics describe as immersive, spatial experiments. His approach combines self-consciously formalist aesthetics, a Pop Art sensibility, and postmodern Deconstructionist intent, often appropriating and reframing cultural motifs in order to investigate systems of historical and cultural memory, built space, and language. Schafer has exhibited nationally and internationally in museums, galleries and public spaces, including the Whitney Museum of American Art, MoMA PS1, The Drawing Center, MASS MoCA, Baltimore Museum of Art, Long Beach Museum of Art, SculptureCenter, and Vleeshal Middelburg (the Netherlands). He has received awards from the Pollock-Krasner Foundation and National Endowment for the Arts, among others, as well as public commissions from the Public Art Fund of New York and the Los Angeles County Arts Commission. Los Angeles Times critic Leah Ollman describes his work as a "heady jumble" producing collisions, contradictions and convergences at the intersection of architecture, sound, sculpture, language and theory in order to "disrupt communication intentionally, incisively, through strategies of fragmentation and interruption." Schafer has taught sculpture, art theory, digital media and sound at institutions on the East and West coasts since 1985, and is currently on the Fine Arts faculty at Art Center College of Design in Los Angeles.
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Fernando J. Gaitan Jr
- Occupations
- journalistjudgelawyer
- Biography
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Fernando Joe Gaitan Jr. is a senior United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Western District of Missouri.
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Scott Ferris
- Occupations
- politicianlawyer
- Biography
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Scott Ferris was a U.S. Representative from Oklahoma.
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Arnie Portocarrero
- Occupations
- baseball player
- Biography
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Arnold Mario Portocarrero was an American professional baseball player and right-handed pitcher who appeared in 166 games pitched in the major leagues over all or parts of seven seasons for the Philadelphia / Kansas City Athletics and Baltimore Orioles. Born in New York City of Puerto Rican descent, he was listed as 6 feet 3 inches (1.91 m) tall and 196 pounds (89 kg).
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Armando Torres Chibrás
- Born in
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Mexico - Occupations
- conductorwriter
- Biography
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Armando Torres Chibrás is an orchestra conductor at Pershing Middle School, with extended activities as scholar, lecturer, academic jury, author and arts leader born in Mexico City. He is currently Head of the Orchestral Academy Program of El Sistema-Mexico, an agency of the National Council for Culture and the Arts of Mexico.
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Dean Whipple
- Occupations
- judgelawyer
- Biography
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Harold Dean Whipple is a senior United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Western District of Missouri.
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Randy D. Dunn
- Occupations
- politician
- Biography
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Randy D. Dunn is prominent political figure and community leader in Missouri. He is a former member of the Missouri House of Representatives from the 23rd District. Dunn was first elected in 2012 at the age of 29 and was subsequently reelected in 2014 and 2016. He formerly worked as a staff member for US Congressman Emanuel Cleaver II and as the Executive Director for the Missouri Democratic Party. Currently, he is the Community Development Director for a local municipality.
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Art Staed
- Occupations
- politician
- Biography
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Art Staed is a current Iowa State Representative from the 80th District. A Democrat, he was in the Iowa House of Representatives for one term, from 2007 to 2009, before being elected again in 2013. Staed holds a B.A. in Philosophy from Rockhurst University in Kansas City, a Master's degree in Secondary Education from the University of Missouri at Kansas City and another master's degree in Secondary Administration from East Central University in Ada, Oklahoma.
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Luann Ridgeway
- Occupations
- politician
- Biography
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Luann Ridgeway is an attorney who served in several elected government offices. A Republican, she served as a member of the Missouri House of Representatives elected in 1992 and serving through 2002 and Missouri Senate elected in 2004 and serving through 2012. Ridgeway served as the Eastern District Commissioner of Clay County, Missouri, elected 2012 through 2020. She announced she would not run for reelection in 2020 and returned to private life in 2021.
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Cameron S. Brown
- Occupations
- politician
- Biography
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Cameron S. Brown is an independent consultant and speaker, and a former Republican Party legislator from the U.S. state of Michigan having served two terms in the Michigan Senate.
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Avery Kier
- Occupations
- military personnel
- Biography
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Avery Raymond Kier was a United States Marine Corps aviator and general officer. During World War II he served as the commanding officer of VMSB-234 and towards the end of the war was a pioneer in the development of close air support for ground combat operations serving at both Iwo Jima and Okinawa. Following WW II, Kier served as the commanding officer of numerous Marine aircraft groups, air stations and air wings, with his last assignment being that of deputy commander for Fleet Marine Force, Pacific. He retired from the Marine Corps on 1 March 1967.
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Mike Racy
- Born in
- United States
- Biography
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Michael Racy is an American College Sports Leader, a Higher Education Attorney, and a former University Executive. Racy currently serves as the commissioner for the Mid-America Intercollegiate Athletics Association. Prior to being appointed MIAA commissioner, Racy practiced law in the Kansas City metropolitan area, served as a vice president at the University of Central Missouri, and as a vice president at the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA).
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Robert Mayer
- Occupations
- politician
- Biography
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Robert Mayer is an American attorney who has also worked as a farmer, broadcaster, and industrial engineering technician. He was also a Republican member of the Missouri State Senate. His term expired in 2012 and he was replaced by Doug Libla. He resides in Dexter, Missouri, with his wife, the former Nancy Tuley, and their three children, Jason, Dustin, and Daniel.
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Kevin Corby
- Occupations
- association football player
- Biography
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Kevin Corby is an American soccer player. He was born and raised in the St. Louis area and attended St. Louis University High School while playing for various youth and amateur sides of local club powerhouse St. Louis Scott Gallagher. He began his college career with the Kentucky Wildcats before transferring to the University of Missouri-Kansas City for his final three years of eligibility.
