Robert P. (Bob) Benoit (1927–2008) was chief operating officer and general manager of the Hollywood Park Racetrack in Inglewood, California. In 2004, he became the first recipient of the Laffit Pincay Jr. Award, given by Hollywood Park to a person who served racing with "integrity, extraordinary dedication, determination, and distinction".
Kathryn E. Vonderau (born September 26, 1927 - August 10, 2022) was an American catcher who played from 1946 through 1953 in the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League. Listed at 5 ft 7 in (1.70 m), 155 lb., she batted and threw right-handed.Kathryn Vonderau was an integral part of multiple playoff teams with her leadership. More important than her offensive numbers, Vonderau was a fine receiver with a quick throwing arm and a fine glove during her eight seasons in the league. After retiring from baseball, she had a successful career as an educator for thirty-one years.Born in Fort Wayne, Indiana, Vonderau caught and played at first base for a fast-pitch softball champion team sponsored by Harold Greiner, owner of the Bob-Inn Restaurant in Fort Wayne. The team won state championship titles in 1944 and 1945, while Greiner, who scouted for the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League, recommended Vonderau for the league's tryouts. She joined the league in 1946, following her high school graduation at Elmhurst High School, and was assigned to her hometown team, the Fort Wayne Daisies. But then the league started shuffling her around to fill in where she was needed.For the next three seasons, Vonderau divided her playing time with the Muskegon Lassies (1947), Chicago Colleens (1948) and Peoria Redwings (1948–1949). She suffered a knee injury in 1948 while playing for Peoria, which somewhat limited her playing time for the rest of her career.Vonderau returned to the Daisies in 1950, playing for them through 1952, when she helped Fort Wayne win the pennant. She was then sent to the Muskegon Belles in 1953, her last year in the circuit. Her most productive season came in 1951, when she posted career numbers with a .221 batting average, 32 runs batted in and 24 runs scored. She also gained a spot in the 1953 All-Star Team.Following her baseball career, Vondearau had a teaching career at all academic levels from elementary through university as a Health, Physical Education and Recreation educator. Her academic honors include bachelor's and master's degrees from Indiana University and a doctorate from University of Iowa. She retired from the University of Wisconsin–Whitewater in 1988.She is included in Women in Baseball, a permanent display based at the Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum in Cooperstown, New York, which was unveiled to honor the entire All-American Girls Professional Baseball League rather than individual baseball personalities. She also gained induction into the Wisconsin–Whitewater Hall of Fame in 1996.Vonderau died on August 10, 2022.
Alice Dye (February 19, 1927 – February 1, 2019) was an American amateur golfer and golf course designer known as the "First Lady" of golf architecture in the United States.
Richard Charles Cornuelle (April 10, 1927 – April 26, 2011) was a political activist, charity worker, author, and one of the first modern American libertarians.
Howard Earl "Howie" Williams (October 29, 1927 – December 25, 2004) was an American basketball player who competed in the 1952 Summer Olympics. Williams played collegiately at Purdue University where he was a 2x All-Big Ten guard (1948–49, 1949–50); he was selected as the Purdue team MVP in his junior and senior seasons and as Team Captain in 1949-50; posting a career total of 735 points (10.0 game avg). He led the Big Ten Conference in Free Throw Percentage (85.7%) for the 1948-49 season.
He was a 3rd Round pick of the Minneapolis Lakers in the 1950 NBA draft but chose instead to sign a contract with the Peoria Caterpillars of the American Athletic Union and the National Industrial Basketball League. The Caterpillars finished 4th in the NIBL but won the National AAU title (the first of three consecutive titles), knocking off the regular season champions, the Phillips Oilers in the semi-finals on Williams last second bucket. Williams and the rest of the Caterpillar team defeated the NCAA Champion Kansas Jayhawks in the AAU Title game. Following the title game, the Los Angeles Times named Williams the AAU Player of the Year; Williams then led Peoria to another AAU National title in 1953.
The 1952 win placed Williams as well as Peoria teammates; Ronald Bontemps, Marcus Freiberger, Frank McCabe and Dan Pippin on the U.S. Olympic squad. That team, led by fellow native Hoosier Clyde Lovellette won the gold medal. He played all eight games and finished #8 in scoring for the squad.
Williams spent four seasons playing for the Caterpillars and finished with 1,235 career points, eighth on their career scoring list.
He was inducted into the Indiana Basketball Hall of Fame in 1989 and the Greater Peoria Sports Hall of Fame in 1991. He died in Phoenix, Arizona in 2004; following a 35-year career with the Caterpillar Corporation.
Virginia A. Myers (8 May 1927 – 7 December 2015) was an American artist, professor, and inventor. She was born in Greencastle, Indiana, and grew up with her parents and younger sister mostly in Cleveland, Ohio, where her father taught at various colleges and schools.
She studied at George Washington University and the Corcoran School of Art in Washington, D.C., and received her B.A. in drawing and painting in 1949. Then, in 1951 she went on to earn an M.F.A. in Painting from The California College of Arts and Crafts, Oakland. Myers completed post-graduate work at the University of Illinois (Urbana) and in 1955 came to the University of Iowa to study printmaking with Mauricio Lasansky. From 1961 to 1962, Myers studied in Paris at Atelier 17 with Stanley William Hayter under a Fulbright Scholarship.
To supplement her income while completing post-graduate work in Iowa, Myers learned how to gild picture frames with silver lead. This work inspired her to incorporate silver and gold leaf in her intaglio prints.In 1962 Myers became an instructor at the University of Iowa, where she taught printmaking classes in the School of Art and Art History - she was the only woman teaching studio courses at this time. Myers would go on to earn a faculty position at the University of Iowa. In 1985 Myers attended a seminar taught by Glenn. E Hutchinson (President of Universal Stamping and Embossing Company). From this seminar, Myers learned of foil stamping and began to more seriously pursue this aspect of her artistic practice.
Myers taught intaglio printmaking and foil imaging, made possible by her invention of the Iowa Foil Printer, which makes use of the commercial foil stamping process. After the invention of the press, she worked in conjunction with community members and students to improve and document the printmaking process of foil stamping using the Iowa Foil Press, and they collectively produced a book, Foil Imaging...A New Art Form, in 2001.
She presented in more than 100 one-person exhibitions in the United States and abroad, and participated in more than 150 juried exhibitions and traveling shows nationally and internationally. Her work is included in collections at the National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington, D.C.; the Toledo Museum of Art, Toledo, Ohio; and the Des Moines Art Center, Des Moines, Iowa, among others.
Richard M. "Dick" Goldstein (born April 1927) is an American radar astronomer and planetary scientist, who has been called "The Father of Radar Interferometry."
Douglass Stott Parker, Sr. (May 27, 1927 – February 8, 2011) was an American classicist, academic, and translator.
James Prideaux (August 29, 1927 – November 18, 2015) was an American playwright known for The Last of Mrs. Lincoln.
Prideaux was born in 1927 as James Priddy in South Bend, Indiana, the son of Lloyd Priddy, a professional photographer, and Beulah Shirey.Wanting to become an actor, he adopted a new name and relocated to Chicago and then New York, but found his metier as a writer. He wrote for magazines such as Playboy and the Ladies Home Journal and joined the Barr-Wilder-Albee Playwrights Unit, a theater workshop.For The Last of Mrs Lincoln, he won the Drama Desk Award for Most Promising Playwright in 1973. He also wrote Postcards, Lemonade, and The Orphans.Moving to television, he wrote The Secret Storm. He became friends with Katharine Hepburn, who acted in many of his films, such as Mrs. Delafield Wants to Marry (1986), Laura Lansing Slept Here (1988), The Man Upstairs (1992). He received a Primetime Emmy nomination for Outstanding Television Movie for producing Mrs. Delafield Wants to Marry. In 1996, he published his memoirs Knowing Hepburn and Other Curious Experiences.He died of a stroke in West Hills, Los Angeles on November 18, 2015.
John Angus Chamberlain (April 16, 1927 – December 21, 2011), was an American sculptor and filmmaker. At the time of his death he resided and worked on Shelter Island, New York.