Shackelford is an American actor. He played Gary Ewing in the CBS television series Knots Landing (1979-1993); since 2006, he has appeared in a recurring role on the CBS soap The Young and the Restless, portraying twin brothers William and Jeffrey Bardwell.

Simon was an American director, producer, writer, animal rights activist, boxing manager, tournament poker player, and philanthropist, most noted as co-creator of the television series The Simpsons. In 1989, Simon developed the animated sitcom The Simpsons with Matt Groening and James L. Brooks. Simon assembled the show’s first writing team, co-wrote eight episodes and has been credited with “developing [the show’s] sensibility”.

Simon’s relationship with Groening was strained and he left the show in 1993, negotiating a pay-off which saw him receive tens of millions of dollars from the show’s revenue each year. The following year Simon co-created The George Carlin Show, before later working as a director on shows such as The Drew Carey Show. Simon won nine Primetime Emmy Awards for his television work.

Donald Clarence “Don” Simpson was an American film producer, screenwriter, and actor. In the early 1970s, Simpson moved to Los Angeles and got a job marketing exploitation films for Warner Bros. In 1973, Simpson got a job at Paramount Pictures. While there, he co-wrote the 1976 film Cannonball, in which he also had a small role. By 1981, he was named president of production at Paramount. Simpson left Paramount in 1982 and forged a partnership with fellow producer Jerry Bruckheimer. The two would go on to produce some of the most financially successful films of the 1980s: Flashdance (1983), Beverly Hills Cop (1984), Top Gun (1986) and Beverly Hills Cop II (1987). In 1985 and again in 1988, he and his producing partner, Jerry Bruckheimer, were named Producers of the Year by the National Association of Theatre Owners.

In 1990, Simpson and Bruckheimer signed a five-year deal with Paramount worth a reported $300 million. The deal would prove to be short lived. Later that year, the Simpson and Bruckner-produced Days of Thunder starring Tom Cruise was released. The auto racing film received mixed reviews and grossed $158 million (over a $60 million budget). While the film was still a financial success, it did not match the success of Simpson and Bruckheimer’s previous films. The duo mutually parted with Paramount shortly thereafter.

In 1991, the two signed with Disney. Their first film for Disney, The Ref (1994), was a financial flop. Their following films, Dangerous Minds, Crimson Tide, and Bad Boys, all released in 1995, brought the pair back to success.

Frank Nicholas Stanton was an American broadcasting executive who served as the president of CBS between 1946 and 1971 and then as vice chairman until 1973. He also served as the chairman of the Rand Corporation from 1961 until 1967.

Martin Tahse is possibly most well known for his productions of Broadway shows that went on tour. With this, he became known for producing ABC’s after school specials.

Phil Walden was co-founder of the Macon, Georgia-based Capricorn Records with his younger brother Alan Walden and a friend, former Atlantic Records executive, Frank Fenter. Walden served as Otis Redding’s manager from 1959 until Redding’s death in 1967. Walden hosted one of Redding’s first shows at the Phi Delta Theta lodge in the sixties. He later helped launch the career of the Allman Brothers Band.

After managing several R&B acts in the 1960s, including Al Green, Sam & Dave, Percy Sledge, and Redding, Walden helped create the Southern rock genre with Capricorn Records, where the roster featured the Allmans, the Marshall Tucker Band, Elvin Bishop, Wet Willie, Bonnie Bramlett, White Witch, Hydra, Grinderswitch, and the Dixie Dregs. Personal and financial difficulties led to the demise of Capricorn in 1980, but Walden resurrected the label ten years later in Nashville, kicking off the return with the debut album from Widespread Panic and the eclectic band Sonia Dada.

Walden was inducted into the Georgia Music Hall of Fame in 1986. Phil Walden died of cancer at the age of 66 in his home in Atlanta on April 23, 2006.

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.

Hugh Hamilton Wilson is an American movie director, writer and TV showrunner, best known as the creator of the TV series WKRP in Cincinnati and Frank’s Place, and as the director of the popular movie comedies Police Academy and The First Wives Club, He was a former chapter president for us and is a distinguished alumnus of the University of Florida.

Edward Kramer Thompson was an American writer and editor. He was the editor of LIFE from its early days as a weekly and was the founding editor of Smithsonian Magazine.

In 1929 he started working for the Milwaukee Journal where he would remain until 1937. He also worked as a stringer for TIME which brought him to the attention of Henry Luce who was thinking about introducing a national picture magazine, which would become LIFE. Luce hired Thompson in 1937 as assistant picture editor for this new venture. From 1949-1961 he was the managing editor. During this time he came to know Lee Eitington, who would become his second wife in 1963. Thompson was known for the free rein he gave his editors, particularly a “trio of formidable and colorful women: Sally Kirkland, fashion editor; Mary Letherbee, movie editor; and Mary Hamman, modern living editor.” He retired from LIFE as editor in chief, in 1970.

Next he “invented”, to use his word, Smithsonian magazine. “To those all-out converts to computerized journalism who declaim that ‘print is dead,’ I say, ‘Not so fast.'” are his opening words of his book: A Love Affair with Life & Smithsonian published by the University of Missouri Press in October 1995. His other ‘invention’ was the magazine Impact which he created for the Army Air Forces during his time out during World War II; LIFE, he would say, was Henry Luce’s invention.