Eugene Joseph "Gene" McCarthy (March 29, 1916 – December 10, 2005) was an American politician, poet, and a long-time member of the United States Congress from Minnesota. He served in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1949 to 1959 and the U.S. Senate from 1959 to 1971.

In the 1968 presidential election, McCarthy was the first candidate to challenge incumbent Lyndon B. Johnson for the Democratic nomination for president of the United States, running on an anti-Vietnam War platform. The unexpected vote total he achieved in the New Hampshire primary and his strong polling in the upcoming Wisconsin primary led Johnson to withdraw from the race, and lured Robert F. Kennedy into the contest. Fellow Minnesotan US Vice-President Hubert Humphrey also entered the race after Johnson's withdrawal. McCarthy would unsuccessfully seek the presidency five times altogether.

McCarthy was the son of a deeply religious mother of German descent, Anna (née Baden), and strong-willed father of Irish descent, Michael J. McCarthy, who was a postmaster and cattle buyer known for his earthy wit. McCarthy grew up in Watkins, Minnesota, as one of four children, and attended St. Anthony's Catholic School in Watkins. A bright student who spent hours reading his aunt's Harvard Classics, he was deeply influenced by the monks at nearby St. John's Abbey and University. McCarthy spent nine months as a novice before he left the monastery, causing a fellow novice to say, "It was like losing a 20-game winner."

Morton Lyon "Mort" Sahl (born May 11, 1927) is a Canadian-born American comedian and actor. He occasionally wrote jokes for speeches delivered by President John F. Kennedy. He was the first comedian to record a live album and the first to perform on college campuses. He was on the cover of Time magazine in 1960 where they called him "the patriarch of a new school of comedians".

He was born on May 11, 1927 in Montreal, Quebec, Canada to Harry Sahl. His father was a court reporter who met his wife when she responded to an advertisement he took out in a poetry magazine. The family moved to Los Angeles, California and Mort joined the ROTC unit at Belmont High School. He was also on the staff of the school's newspaper, the Belmont Sentinel. Actor Richard Crenna was one of his classmates.

After high school, in 1945, Sahl enlisted in the United States Air Force and was stationed in Alaska. In 1950, he graduated from University of Southern California with majors in traffic engineering and city management. In a speech given at Claremont McKenna's Athenaeum in 2008, Sahl claimed to have attended West Point. He then began performing stand up comedy at Enrico Banducci's hungry i nightclub in San Francisco.

Thomas John "Tom" Brokaw (/ˈbroʊkɔː/; born February 6, 1940) is an American television journalist and author best known as the anchor and managing editor of NBC Nightly News from 1982 to 2004. He is the author of The Greatest Generation (1998) and other books and the recipient of numerous awards and honors. He is the only person to host all three major NBC News programs: The Today Show, NBC Nightly News, and, briefly, Meet the Press. He now serves as a Special Correspondent for NBC News and works on documentaries for other outlets.

Brokaw was born in Webster, South Dakota, the son of Eugenia "Jean" (born Conley), who worked in sales and as a post-office clerk, and Anthony Orville "Red" Brokaw. He was the eldest of their three sons and was named after his maternal great-grandfather, Thomas Conley. His father was a descendant of Huguenot immigrants Bourgon and Catherine (le Fèvre) Broucard, and his mother was Irish-American. His paternal great-grandfather, Richard P. Brokaw, founded the town of Bristol, South Dakota, and the Brokaw House, a small hotel and the first structure in Bristol.

Fran Quinn, Jr. (born March 11, 1965) is an American professional golfer who has played on the PGA Tour and the Nationwide Tour.

Quinn was born in Worcester, Massachusetts and attended Northwestern University where he graduated in 1987 with a degree in Economics. He turned professional in 1988.

Quinn played his first full season on the Nationwide Tour, then Ben Hogan Tour, in 1991, where he made 13 of 25 cuts. He later in the year finished T8 at Q-School, obtaining his PGA Tour card for 1992. He made only 6 of 18 cuts in 1992 and lost his tour card for 1993.

Quinn played off and on the PGA and Nationwide Tour's from 1993 to 1997, until he shifted his focus mainly ot the Nationwide Tour. In 1999, Quinn picked up his first win on a major tour at the NIKE Dakota Dunes Open in a playoff. He had three top-10s on the season, but it was not enough to earn his PGA Tour card for 2000.

Quinn won his first start of 2000 at the BUY.COM Florida Classic, but it was his only top 10 of the season. He finished with $125,000 in season long earnings. After his 2000 win, Quinn saw his game come to a standstill. From 2002 to mid-2009, he had played in over 300 events, not winning any of them, finishing in the top-10 only 17 times.

Mary Martha Corinne Morrison Claiborne Roberts (née Boggs) (born December 27, 1943), best known as Cokie Roberts, is an American journalist and author. She is a contributing senior news analyst for National Public Radio as well as a regular roundtable analyst for the current This Week With George Stephanopoulos. Roberts also works as a political commentator for ABC News, serving as an on-air analyst for the network.

Roberts, along with her husband, Steven V. Roberts, writes a weekly column syndicated by United Media in newspapers around the United States. She serves on the boards of several non-profit organizations such as the Kaiser Family Foundation and was appointed by President George W. Bush to his Council on Service and Civic Participation.

Mary Martha Corinne Morrison Claiborne Boggs was born on December 27, 1943 in New Orleans, Louisiana. She received the sobriquet "Cokie" from her brother Tommy, who could not pronounce "Corinne". Cokie Roberts is the third child and youngest daughter of former ambassador and long-time Democratic Congresswoman from Louisiana Lindy Boggs and of the late Hale Boggs, also a Democratic Congressman from Louisiana who was Majority Leader of the House of Representatives. Her sister, the late Barbara Boggs Sigmund, was mayor of Princeton, New Jersey and a candidate for U.S. Senate from New Jersey. Her brother Tommy Boggs is a prominent Washington, D.C. attorney and lobbyist.