John Baumann has established himself as songwriter and entertainer. He’s released several solo releases, while honing his songwriting skills and landing cuts with other artists – from Kenny Chesney to the Randy Rogers Band he is not short on innate talent and storytelling. He is also a member of the acclaimed group, The Panhandlers, along with Phi Delta Theta brother Josh Abbott, William Clark Green, and Cleto Cordero (of Flatland Cavalry). He is currently working on a new solo project, as well as a new Panhandlers album, both available in the near future.

James “Jamie” Murray is a contestant from MTV’a reality television series The Real World: New Orleans (2000). The show focused on a group of diverse strangers living together for several months in a different city each season, as cameras followed their lives and relationships. He is the champion of the Extreme Challenge, Battle of the Sexes, and The Gauntlet 2.

John Harwood is Editor at Large for CNBC covering Washington and hosts the CNBC Digital original video series “Speakeasy with John Harwood.”

Harwood was born in Louisville, Kentucky, and grew up in the Maryland suburbs outside of the nation’s capital. He has been around journalism and politics all his life; his first trip on a presidential campaign press plane came when he was 11 years old and accompanied his father, then a political reporter for The Washington Post.

While still in high school, he began his journalism career as a copy boy at The Washington Star. He studied history and economics at Duke University and graduated magna cum laude in 1978. Harwood subsequently joined The St. Petersburg Times, reporting on police, investigative projects, local government and politics. Later he became state capital correspondent in Tallahassee, Washington correspondent and political editor. While covering national politics, he also traveled extensively to South Africa, where he covered deepening unrest against the apartheid regime.

In 1989, Harwood was named a Nieman Fellow at Harvard University, where he spent the 1989-90 academic year. In 1991, he joined The Wall Street Journal as White House correspondent, covering the administration of George H. W. Bush. Later Harwood reported on Congress. In 1997, he became The Wall Street Journal’s political editor and chief political correspondent.

While at The Wall Street Journal, Harwood wrote the newspaper’s political column, “Washington Wire,” and oversaw the Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll. In March 2006, he joined CNBC as Chief Washington Correspondent.

In addition to CNBC, Harwood offers political analysis on NBC and NPR, among others. Harwood has covered each of the last nine presidential elections.

Myk was raised in the Muscle Shoals, area of North Alabama. He attended the University of Utah, under the tutelage of Kenneth H. Washington, and studied at The Shakespeare Theatre in Washington, D.C.

You’ve probably seen Myk on just about every cop show on TV, most notably a recurring stint on “Law & Order: SVU”, as well the all the “CSI’s”, “NCIS’s”, and every other procedural using acronyms. Other notable TV work include “Breaking Bad, True Blood, Justified, Longmire, Scandal, just to name a few.

In 2019, Myk will first be seen in Season 3 of the hit HBO series, True Detective: Season 3 with Marhershala Ali (Oscar Winner for Moonlight) as well as guest starring roles on CBS’ hit show “Elementary”, and Fox’s “Lethal Weapon”. This Summer, we will see Myk as “Little Jackie” in the highly anticipated big screen adaptation of DC/Vertigo Comics “The Kitchen”, alongside Melissa McCarthy, Elisabeth Moss and Tiffany Haddish. Myk is also known for his previous feature endeavors in movies like “No Country For Old Men”, “Spider-Man”, “Trailer Park of Terror” and “NY Prison Break”.

Myk was classically trained, and has appeared in over a hundred theatrical productions, including numerous Broadway and Off Broadway hits such as “Take Me Out”, “Hank Williams; Lost Highway”, “The Good Negro” “Five By Tenn” and many, many more.

Myk is also a musician, and when he is not on set, you can often find him rocking the Hollywood scene with his popular swamp-rockabilly-revival band “Stumpwaller”.

Most Canadians would know Bruce Gray as the star of the TV series Traders (Gemini Award), but most Americans would recognize him as the Father of the groom in My Big Fat Greek Wedding. Although he began his acting career on stage in the 60s, he quickly moved into daytime dramas: contracted to Somerset, High Hopes and the Edge of Night in the 70’s. A move to Hollywood in the 80s led to guest star roles on hundreds of TV shows, recurring on Murder She Wrote, Medium, Tour of Duty, Falling Skies, How I met your Mother. Bruce gained notoriety in the gay community as “Shickle The Pickle” on Queer As Folk, then for football fans by playing a team owner on Playmakers for ESPN.

Robert Ferris Prince was an American radio and television sportscaster and commentator best known for his 28-year stint as the voice of the Pittsburgh Pirates Major League Baseball club, with whom he earned the nickname “The Gunner” and became a cultural icon in Pittsburgh.

Prince was one of the most distinct and popular voices in sports broadcast history, known for his gravel voice, unabashed style and clever nicknames and phrases, which came to be known as “Gunnerisms.” His unique manner influenced a number of broadcasters after him, including Pittsburgh Penguins voice Mike Lange and Pittsburgh Steelers color analyst Myron Cope.

Prince called Pirates games from 1948 to 1975, including the World Series championship years of 1960 and 1971. Nationally, Prince broadcast the 1960, 1966, and 1971 World Series and the 1965 All-Star Game for NBC, as well as the first year (1976) of ABC’s Monday Night Baseball. He also broadcast at different times for other Pittsburgh-area sports teams, including Steelers football and Penguins hockey.

Phi Delta Theta Sports Hall of Fame Inductee

Grantland Rice was a sports writer and poet whose columns became nationally syndicated beginning in 1930. Rice is known as the Dean of American Sports Writers and the most famous sports writer in America during the first half of the 20th century. His poetry included Alumni Football, which ends with the lines: “For when the One Great Scorer comes to write against your name, He marks not that you won or lost, but how you played the game.”

To honor his 50 years in journalism, the Grantland Rice Fellowship in Journalism was established with the New York Community Trust in 1951. In 1954, the Football Writers Association established the Grantland Rice Memorial Award given to an outstanding college player chosen by the association. The Grantland Rice Bowl, a college bowl game named in his honor, was played from 1964 to 1977. He received the J.G. Taylor Spink Award posthumously in 1966 from the Baseball Writers Association of America for meritorious contributions to baseball writing.

Today, the Fred Russell-Grantland Rice Sports Writing Scholarship provides a partial tuition scholarship to an entering Vanderbilt student interested in the field of sports journalism.

Harry Norbert Kalas was an American sportscaster, best known for his Ford C. Frick Award-winning role as lead play-by-play announcer for Major League Baseball’s Philadelphia Phillies, a position he held from 1971 until his death in 2009.

Kalas was also closely identified with the National Football League, serving as a voice-over narrator for NFL Films productions (a regular feature on Inside the NFL) and calling football games nationally for Westwood One radio.

Kalas collapsed in the Washington Nationals’ broadcast booth on April 13, 2009, about an hour before a Phillies game was scheduled to begin against the Nationals, and died soon afterward.

Clint Wallace gained classic design training in architecture at Barton Meyers and Associates, where he become an associate at the firm in 1997. Clint then transitioned to the film industry in 1999, where he went to work on the art direction, set design, and visual effects for over twenty-five films. His filmography highlights include Independence Day: Resurgence (2016), Ender’s Game (2013), Men in Black 3 (2012), Captain America, the first Avenger (2011), The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008), Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End (2007), Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest (2006), Serenity (2005), Collateral (2004), Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines and Stuart Little 2 (2002). Clint is known throughout the industry for his solution-oriented reputation.

His production design department awards include the 2008 Academy Award for Best Achievement in Art Direction and the 2008 Art Director’s Guild Award for Excellence in Production design for The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. His art department nominations include the Art Director’s Guild Award for Excellence in Production Design for Captain America, the first Avenger (2011), Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End (2007) and Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest (2006).

William Allen White was born on February 10, 1868, in Emporia, KS. He was the son of Allen White, a country merchant and doctor, and Mary A. Hatten White, pioneer Kansas teacher. White grew up in El Dorado, attended the College of Emporia and later the University of Kansas. Though the future “Sage of Emporia” attended both colleges, he never earned a degree. In later years, White would receive honorary degrees from at least eight leading universities.

Though he never received a degree, White got a job in El Dorado where he learned the printing and newspaper business.

“Sheer luck put me into the newspaper business,” he wrote in 1885. While a student in college, White sent three letters asking for a job – one to a grocer, one to a merchant and the third to the editor of the El Dorado paper. The grocer and merchant “knew my desultory ways and rejected me on suggestion. T.P. Fulton knew my father and took a chance.”

White was later a reporter in Lawrence and in 1892 went to work for Tthe Kansas City Star as an editorial writer. Then, on June 1, 1895, he borrowed $3,000 to purchase The Emporia Gazette, where he remained for the remainder of his life.

Around the Gazette office, everyone knew William Allen White affectionately as “The Boss.” He, in turn, referred to his employees as “The Gazette family.” White’s office was located between the editorial and business departments. The employees tended to use the office as a short cut, which White encouraged. He did have a private office in the building but rarely used it, preferring instead to be closer to his employees.

White was a local figure in Emporia until 1896, when he wrote a sarcastic editorial, “What’s the Matter with Kansas.” The editorial was written after White engaged in a street corner debate with a local populist while waiting on a train bound for Colorado. The argument centered around the McKinley-Bryan campaign. The young editor took the Republican side and the Populist, reinforced by bystanders, the Bryan cause.

In the midst of the argument, White remembered he had some editorials to write before it was time to board the train. He dashed to the office and, still “boiling mad,” sat down and wrote “What’s the Matter with Kansas.” It was a scathing piece, flaying the Democratic leaders.

White didn’t publish the editorial, but it somehow made its way to Chicago and New York. “Boss” Mark Hanna, Republican national chairman, liked it and, had it reprinted and distributed throughout the country. When White returned home from his vacation in Colorado, he found himself famous. Many years later, White said that perhaps he had been too harsh in that editorial – when at another time he might have spoken more softly.

After McKinley’s election in 1896, White made many national contacts, which kept him in touch with leaders and current affairs. He was also called on to aid in drafting Republican national platforms. In 1936, White laid down his editorial pen and worked for the presidential nomination of Alf Landon, a fellow Kansan, who was defeated by Franklin D. Roosevelt. That year, White was also chairman of the Republican Party’s resolutions committee.

Not only did White participate in national politics, he once sought public office in Kansas. In 1924, White ran independently for governor of Kansas because the Ku Klux Klan had endorsed two other candidates for that office. During the fight, he was branded un-American and cowardly and finished third in the race.

White was not just a businessman, he was also a family man. On April 27, 1893, he was married to Miss Sallie Lindsay of Kansas City. The couple had two children, Mary and William Lindsay White.

Tragedy struck the family in 1921 when, at age 16, Mary was killed when she was brushed from a horse by a low-hanging limb of a tree. White later poured out his grief in an editorial in the Gazette. “A rift in the clouds in a gray day threw a shaft of sunlight upon her coffin as her nervous energetic little body sank to its last sleep. But the soul of her, the glowing, gorgeous, fervent soul of her, surely was flaming in eager joy upon some other dawn.”

William L. White followed his father’s footsteps as a writer. He was a war correspondent in Europe, wrote best-selling books such as a “A Journey for Margaret” and wrote Hollywood screenplays. Once when “Young Bill” was in Europe during the war, his picture appeared briefly in a newsreel in Emporia. His father and mother went every day to the theater, sometimes twice, just to catch a fleeting glimpse of him.