Abraham Hyman Feder (July 27, 1908, Milwaukee, Wisconsin – April 24, 1997, Manhattan, New York) was an American lighting designer. He is regarded as the creator of lighting design for the theatre and was the country's leading consultant in architectural and urban lighting.The lights at Rockefeller Center and the Empire State Building were turned off for one hour in Feder's honor after his death.
Thomas O. Hancock (March 25, 1929 – January 1, 2020) was an American musician widely regarded as the godfather of West Texas music.
Hancock was born and raised in Lubbock, Texas, and his grandmother had him classically trained in violin. At age 16, Tommy joined the military and traveled overseas as a paratrooper and military policeman, serving in the Pacific towards the end of World War II. Upon his discharge at the end of the war, he returned to Lubbock, where he led a popular swing band called the Roadside Playboys. The Playboys had various members over time, including performers such as guitarist Sonny Curtis and fiddler Benjamin "Tex" Logan.: 69 In the late 1940s, Hancock hired Charlene Condray as a singer; they went on to marry. Together with five of their children, they toured the Rocky Mountains as "The Supernatural Family Band". Today, three of their children still tour as the "Texana Dames."
In the early 1970s, Hancock was introduced to fellow performer Jimmie Gilmore. They bonded over a desire to seek out new spiritual experiences. Hancock noted that "my whole thing with taking acid was I want to know God. If there's a god, I want to know him. And Jimmie was the first intelligent person I'd ever run into who was searching for God." Hancock played fiddle for Jimmie Dale's band, The Flatlanders.During the 1970s, Hancock and his family became followers of Guru Maharaj Ji.In 1980, the Hancock family settled in Austin, Texas.
In March 2000, Tommy was inducted into the Austin Chronicle Music Awards Hall of Fame. In 2002, The Supernatural Family Band was inducted into the Country Music Association of Texas Hall of Fame. In 2012, Tommy was inducted into the West Texas Walk of Fame in Lubbock, TX.
On January 1, 2020, Hancock died at age 90.
John Mazmanian (May 18, 1926 – July 21, 2006), also known as Big John Mazmanian, was an American NHRA drag racer.
Henry David “Bud” Molin, A.C.E., (May 26, 1925 – May 21, 2007) was an American film editor and television director.
Anthony Robert "Tony" Ortega (June 7, 1928 – October 30, 2022) was an American jazz clarinetist, saxophonist, and flautist.
Petrus Johannes Waardenburg (3 June 1886 – 23 September 1979) was a Dutch ophthalmologist, geneticist, and pioneer in the application of genetics to ophthalmology. Waardenburg syndrome is named after him.
John George Collias (June 12, 1918 – March 29, 2017) was a Western American painter, illustrator, and commercial artist. Born in Fort Wayne, Indiana, he lived and worked in Boise, Idaho, since the early 1940s and contributed work to the Idaho Statesman, Boise Weekly, Life Magazine, the Gowen Field Beacon, the Allen Noble Boise State Athletic Hall of Fame, the College of Idaho Athletic Hall of Fame, and to the books Sawtooth Tales by Dick D'Easum and John Collias: Round About the Boise Valley. Collias' prolific work spans a number of genres including portraiture, landscape art, wartime military posters, ad and billboard art. He was perhaps best known regionally as the artist behind "A Portrait of A Distinguished Citizen," a weekly portrait feature that ran in the Idaho Statesman from 1963 to 1993.
Melvin Frederick "Mel" Stute (August 8, 1927 – August 12, 2020) was an American trainer of Thoroughbred racehorses. On December 11, 2010, at Hollywood Park Racetrack, he won the 2000th race of a career that includes a win in the second leg of the U.S. Triple Crown series, the Preakness Stakes in 1986, the Breeders' Cup Juvenile Fillies that same year, and the 1987 Breeders' Cup Sprint.Stute was the younger brother of trainer Warren Stute (1921–2007). His family moved to California in 1934 when Mel was seven years old. In his teens, Stute worked as a groom at Santa Anita Racetrack before winning his first race as a trainer in 1947 at Portland Meadows Racetrack in Portland, Oregon. Since then he won twelve training titles at various California tracks of which six were at Fairplex Park Racetrack, where he is the all-time leader in races won.
