1921 births

Alfred_Ahner

Major General Alfred Frederick Ahner (November 12, 1921 – September 23, 2010) was an Indiana National Guard officer who served for 15 years as the state's Adjutant General.
Ahner was born in Huntington, Indiana, and was a graduate of Indiana Central College (B.A., 1947) and Butler University (M.S., 1951). He enlisted in the Army Enlisted Reserve Corps on August 22, 1942 and served in World War II as a 1st Lieutenant, and was the first De-Nazification Officer in the American Zone of Vienna, Austria.After serving as a full-time staff officer with the Indiana Guard, Ahner was appointed as Adjutant General in 1960 by Governor Harold Handley. Governor Edgar Whitcomb also appointed MG Ahner in 1972, and he served until his retirement in 1986. MG Ahner served in that position longer than any other Adjutant General in the state's history, a total of 15 years, under 4 governors.

Samuel_P._Hays

Samuel Pfrimmer Hays (April 5, 1921 – November 22, 2017) was a pioneering environmental, social and political historian. Born in Corydon, Indiana and raised on a local dairy farm. He earned a graduates degree from Swarthmore College in 1948, and a Ph.D. at Harvard University. He authored multiple works including "The Response to Industrialism 1885-1914" in 1957, "Conservation and the Gospel of Efficiency," "Beauty, Health, and Permanence: Environmental Politics in the United States, 1955-1985” and "A History of Environmental Politics since 1945". He established the Archives of Industrial Society at The University of Pittsburgh where he served as a professor from 1960 until 1990.
Hays served as president of the Urban History Association in 1992. In 1997 he came the first recipient of the American Society for Environmental History Distinguished Scholar award. In 1999 he was awarded the Distinguished Service Award from the Organization of American Historians. Hayes was an environmental activist. He owned a 311-acre tract of land in Harrison County, Indiana, near Corydon, and he donated the land to the county as a nature preserve. The county operates it as the Hayswood Nature Reserve.

Robert_L._Letsinger

Robert Lewis Letsinger (July 31, 1921 – May 26, 2014) was an American biochemist and was a professor of chemistry at Northwestern University. He was best known for his research and development of chemical synthesis of DNA.

Robert_O'Hearn

Robert O'Hearn (July 19, 1921 – May 26, 2016) was an American set designer. Though known for his productions of theatre and ballet, he was particularly associated with opera. He designed productions for the Metropolitan Opera from 1960 through 1985.
Robert O'Hearn was born in Elkhart, Indiana. He attended Indiana University, where he received his Bachelor of Arts in 1943.
From 1948 through 1952 he worked at the Brattle Theatre at Harvard University, designing numerous productions. (His work is now part of the Harvard Theatre Collection.) Having made his Broadway theatre debut in 1950 doing the set and costume design for The Releapse by John Vanbrugh, O'Hearn began working regularly on Broadway in 1953 beginning with a production of Shakespeare's Love's Labour's Lost.O'Hearn made his Metropolitan Opera debut in 1960 with a production of Gaetano Donizetti's L'elisir d'amore, notable for the unique conceit of having Dr. Dulcamara enter by a descending balloon. O'Hearn designed 13 productions for the Met, usually working in conjunction with stage director Nathaniel Merrill.In addition to working on Broadway and at the Met, O'Hearn designed productions for The New York City Opera, New York Shakespeare Festival, New York City Center Theater, American Ballet Theatre, New York City Ballet, Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Boston Opera Company, Chicago Lyric Opera, Houston Grand Opera, Ballet West, Los Angeles Civic Light Opera, and the San Francisco Ballet. He designed a production of Der Rosenkavalier for the Canadian Opera Company.In Europe O'Hearn designed productions for the Vienna Volksoper, Bregenzer Festspiele, Hamburg State Opera, as well as productions in Strasbourg, and Karlsruhe.From 1968 through 1988 O'Hearn was a professor at the New York Studio and Forum of Stage Design. Beginning in 1988 until his retirement in 2008, O'Hearn focused exclusively on teaching at the Jacobs School of Music at his alma mater, Indiana University.He died in Bloomington, Indiana on May 26, 2016.

Cliff_Barker

Clifford "Cliff" Eugene Barker (January 15, 1921 – March 17, 1998) was an American basketball player who won the gold medal with the USA national basketball team at the 1948 Summer Olympics in London and two national championships at the University of Kentucky.

While at the University of Kentucky, Barker was an All-SEC (Second Team) and All-SEC Tournament guard during the 1947–48 and 1948–49 seasons.
A member of the United States Army Air Forces during World War II, Barker was a B-17 Flying Fortress gunner and spent 16 months as a prisoner-of-war.