Earl Lauer Butz (July 3, 1909 – February 2, 2008) was a United States government official who served as Secretary of Agriculture under Presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford.

Born in Albion, Indiana and brought up on a dairy farm in Noble County, Indiana. He was the eldest of five children and worked on his parents' 160-acre (0.65 km²) farm while growing up. He attended a one-room country school thru 8th grade and graduated from high school in a class of seven.

He was an alumnus of Purdue University where he was a member of Alpha Gamma Rho Fraternity. He received a Bachelor of Science degree in Agriculture in 1932, and then a doctorate in Agricultural Economics in 1937. He was the uncle of NFL defensive tackle Dave Butz, an All-American at Purdue University and All-Pro with the St. Louis Cardinals (1973-74) and Washington Redskins (1975-88).

In 1948, Butz became vice president of the American Agricultural Economics Association, and three years later was named to the same post at the American Society of Farm Managers and Rural Appraisers. In 1954, he was appointed Assistant Secretary of Agriculture by President Dwight D. Eisenhower. That same year he was also named chairman of the United States delegation to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations.

Jackie DeShannon (born August 21, 1942) is an American singer-songwriter with a string of hit song credits from the 1960s onwards. She was one of the first female singer-songwriters of the rock 'n' roll period.

She was born Sharon Lee Myers in Hazel, Kentucky, the daughter of musically inclined farming parents, Sandra Jean and James Erwin Myers, and was singing country tunes on a local radio show at the age of six. By the age of 11, DeShannon was hosting her own radio program. When life on the farm became too difficult, the family moved to Aurora, Illinois, her mother's home town, and her father resumed his other career as a barber. After a year, they moved up the Fox River to Batavia, Illinois, where Sharon attended high school.

She began to record under various names such as Sherry Lee, Jackie Dee, and Jackie Shannon, but had little success. However, her interpretations of country songs "Buddy" and "Trouble" gained the attention of Rock'n'Roll star Eddie Cochran, who arranged for her to travel to California to meet his girlfriend, singer-songwriter Sharon Sheeley, who formed a writing partnership with DeShannon in 1960. The partnership produced hits such as "Dum Dum" for Brenda Lee.

Ina Anita Carter (March 31, 1933 – July 29, 1999), the youngest daughter of Ezra and Mother Maybelle Carter, was a versatile American singer who experimented with several different types of music and played upright bass with her sisters Helen Carter and June Carter Cash as The Carter Sisters. The trio joined the Grand Ole Opry radio show in 1950 (Anita was 17 years old at the time), opened shows for Elvis Presley, and joined The Johnny Cash Show in 1971. As a solo artist, and with her family, Carter recorded for a number of labels including RCA Victor, Cadence, Columbia, Audiograph, United Artists, Liberty and Capitol.

Born in Maces Spring, Virginia, she scored two Top Ten hits in 1951 with "Down The Trail of Achin' Hearts" with Hank Snow at No. 2 and "Blue Bird Island" at No. 4. She reached the Top Ten again in 1968 with "I Got You" with Waylon Jennings at No. 4. Other solo releases charted as well. Carter recorded two folk albums in the 1960s. In 1962, she recorded a song co-written by her sister June and Merle Kilgore called "Love's Ring Of Fire".

John Lester "Johnny" Nash, Jr. (born August 19, 1940) is an American pop singer-songwriter, best known in the US for his 1972 hit, "I Can See Clearly Now". He was also the first non-Jamaican to record reggae music in Kingston, Jamaica.^{[citation needed]}

Born John Lester Nash, Jr. in Houston, Texas, He began as a pop singer in the 1950s. He also enjoyed success as an actor early in his career appearing in the screen version of playwright Louis S. Peterson's Take a Giant Step. Nash won a Silver Sail Award for his performance from the Locarno International Film Festival.

In 1965, Johnny Nash and Danny Sims formed the JAD label in New York. One of the more interesting signings was four brothers from Newport, Rhode Island, ages 9, 11, 15 and 16, called The Cowsills, before signing with Mercury/Philips with Shelby Singleton, before MGM and their first million selling hit single, "The Rain, The Park & Other Things". The Cowsills went into the studio in New York with studio musicians and recorded a number of songs like "Either You Do Or You Don't" and "You Can't Go Halfway". Eventually The Cowsills would write and record their own song, "All I Really Want To Be Is Me", which became the group's debut single release on JAD.

Carlo Petrini (born 22 June 1949), born in the province of Cuneo in the commune of Bra in Italy, is the founder of the International Slow Food Movement. He first came to prominence in the 1980s for taking part in a campaign against the fast food chain McDonald's opening near the Spanish Steps in Rome.

In 1977, Petrini began contributing culinary articles to communist daily newspapers il manifesto and l'Unità. He is an editor of multiple publications at the publishing house Slow Food Editore. He has written weekly columns for La Stampa and is currently a regular journalist on La Repubblica. In October 2004, he founded the University of Gastronomic Sciences, a school intended to bridge the gap between agriculture and gastronomy. He was chosen as one of Time magazine's heroes of the year.

http://www.practicallyedible.com/edible.nsf/pages/slowfood