Charles Sidney Burrus (October 9, 1934 in Abilene, Texas - April 3, 2021) was an American electrical engineer and the Maxfield and Oshman Professor Emeritus of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Rice University in Houston, Texas. He is widely known for his contributions to digital signal processing, especially FFT algorithms, IIR filter design, and wavelets.
Thomas Bratton Warren (August 1, 1920 – August 8, 2000) was an American professor of philosophy of religion and apologetics at the Harding School of Theology in Memphis, Tennessee, USA, and was an important philosopher and theologian in the Churches of Christ during the latter half of the twentieth century.
Warren had been in failing health for many years when he died at the age of 80.
Reverend Carroll L. "Bud" Pickett (1933 – April 3, 2022) was a Presbyterian minister in Huntsville, Texas. In the 1960s and 1970s, Pickett served as pastor for three churches in Texas. In 1980 he began serving as a chaplain in the Huntsville, Texas, prison, where he spent most of the next 15 years working with prisoners facing imminent execution. After retiring from the Texas Department of Corrections, Pickett wrote and spoke against the death penalty. His 2002 book, Within These Walls: Memoirs of a Death House Chaplain, won several awards. The 2008 documentary At the Death House Door: No Man Should Die Alone chronicles his prison ministry.
John S. Dunne, C.S.C. (December 3, 1929 – November 11, 2013) was an American priest and theologian of the Congregation of Holy Cross. He held the John A. O'Brien Professorship of Theology at the University of Notre Dame.
Charles Allan "Skeeter" Skelton (May 1, 1928, in Hereford, Texas – January 17, 1988, in El Paso, Texas) was an American lawman and firearms writer. After serving in the United States Marine Corps from 1945-46 he began a law enforcement career which included service with the United States Border Patrol, a term as Sheriff of Deaf Smith County, Texas, and investigator with both the US Customs Service and Special Agent in Charge with Drug Enforcement Administration. After his first nationally published article hit newsstands in September 1959, Skelton began writing part-time for firearms periodicals. In 1974 he retired from the DEA and concentrated full-time on his writing.
Donald Ray Payne (January 7, 1933 – February 25, 2017) was an American jazz double-bassist and electric bassist.
Jessie Mae Robinson (née Booker, October 1, 1918 – October 26, 1966) was an American musician and songwriter, whose compositions included many R&B and pop hits of the 1940s and 1950s, including "Black Night", "I Went To Your Wedding", and "Let's Have a Party".
Benjamin Franklin "Tex" Logan, Jr. (June 6, 1927 – April 24, 2015) was an American electrical engineer and bluegrass music fiddler.
Born in Coahoma, Texas, Logan earned a B.Sc. in electrical engineering at Texas Tech University, then Texas Technological College, in Lubbock, Texas, studied for a B.Sc. in engineering at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (1946–51), and completed a M.Sc. (1956). He then moved to New Jersey where he joined Bell Labs (1956) and started his doctoral studies at Columbia University. There he earned a Ph.D. in electrical engineering with his dissertation "Properties of High-Pass Signals" (1965). Logan joined the communication theory department at Bell Labs (1956) where he and others demonstrated the use of computer simulation in the study of reverberation in digital audio, and did joint work with Manfred R. Schroeder who later pioneered MP3 audio (1961). He was with the mathematics center (1963–93) where he contributed to the theory of signals.
As was his father Frank, Logan was a fiddler. He played with Mike Seeger in the late 1950s, with The Lilly Brothers & Don Stover and Bill Monroe in the 1960s, and with Peter Rowan in the 1980s. He performed on several records and international tours, and had minor roles in movies as well. Logan wrote "Christmas Time's A-Coming", a song made popular by Bill Monroe that has been recorded by many performers, including Johnny Cash, Emmylou Harris, Sammy Kershaw, Rhonda Vincent, and Patty Loveless, among others; and "Diamond Joe" recorded by Bob Dylan. In 1969, Logan played fiddle on the Bee Gees' 1969 song "Give Your Best", released on the band's sixth album Odessa.
Logan died April 24, 2015, in Morristown, New Jersey, by the side of his daughter, Jody.
Gene Mayfield (January 31, 1928 – October 2, 2009) was a former American football coach in Texas high school football.Mayfield played quarterback at West Texas State University (now West Texas A&M University), where he also met his future wife Mary Jean. He began his head coaching career at Littlefield before moving on to Borger in 1958. His 1962 squad made the 4A state championship game, losing 26-30 to San Antonio Brackenridge. In 1965, Mayfield took over head coaching duties at Permian High School of Odessa, Texas, where he started the school's winning tradition by beating San Antonio Lee 11-6 for the 1965 4A state championship. Mayfield was only the fifth head coach in Texas' highest classification to win a state championship in his first year. Odessa Permian made the state finals on two more occasions in 1968 and 1970, losing to Austin Reagan each time.
In 1971 Mayfield succeeded legendary Joe E. Kerbel at his alma mater West Texas State University. He had only mediocre success and left the school after the 1976 season with an overall record of 24-39-2. He retired from coaching in 1977, before returning in 1982 to coach at Levelland for six seasons.
Val Joe Walker (January 7, 1930 –December 25, 2013) was a defensive back in the National Football League (NFL). He was drafted in the seventh round of the 1952 NFL Draft by the New York Giants and would later play four seasons with the Green Bay Packers and one with the San Francisco 49ers.