Professor William J. Watson (1865–1948) was a toponymist, one of the greatest Scottish scholars of the 20th century, and was the first scholar to place the study of Scottish place names on a firm linguistic basis.

Watson was a native Gaelic-speaker, born in Milntown of New Tarbat (now known as Milton), Easter Ross. He was the son of Hugh Watson, a blacksmith. He received his initial education from his uncle, James Watson. William became well grounded in Gaelic studies and in the Classics. William went to the University of Aberdeen and the University of Oxford.

First a school teacher in Glasgow, Inverness and then Edinburgh, it was while teaching in Inverness that be began to contribute to the Transactions of the Gaelic Society of Inverness and the Celtic Review. He married Ella Carmichael daughter of Alexander Carmichael. He took the chair of Celtic at the University of Edinburgh in 1914, despite holding no prior university position. He remained in this prestigious position until making way for his son James Carmichael Watson in 1938. William died aged 83 on March 9, 1948

Lester Watson Brown (born April 19, 1950) is an American football coach and former player. He is currently the head football coach at Tennessee Technological University, a position he has held since 2007. Previously, Brown served as the head coach at Austin Peay State University (1979–1980), the University of Cincinnati (1983), Rice University (1984–1985), Vanderbilt University (1986–1990), and the University of Alabama at Birmingham (1995–2006). He was also the athletic director at UAB from 2002 to 2005. Brown played college football as a quarterback at Vanderbilt. He is the older brother of Mack Brown, the head football coach at the University of Texas at Austin.

A native of Cookeville, Tennessee, Brown was one of the top-rated quarterbacks in the nation coming out of high school. He was also recruited to play basketball and was drafted by the Pittsburgh Pirates as a shortstop. He chose to stay in state and was a quarterback at Vanderbilt University from 1969–1972. He started all four years at Vandy and led the Commodores to their best seasons in terms of wins since 1960. One of his victories was a 14–10 upset over the #13 Alabama Crimson Tide in 1969. It was Vanderbilt’s first victory over Alabama in 13 seasons.

William Howard Taft (September 15, 1857 – March 8, 1930) was the 27th President of the United States (1909–1913) and later the tenth Chief Justice of the United States (1921–1930). He is the only person to have served in both of these two offices.

Before becoming President, Taft was selected to serve on the Ohio Superior Court in 1887. In 1890, Taft was appointed Solicitor General of the United States and in 1891 a judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. In 1900, President William McKinley appointed Taft Governor-General of the Philippines. In 1904, President Theodore Roosevelt appointed Taft Secretary of War in an effort to groom Taft, then his close political ally, into his handpicked presidential successor. Taft assumed a prominent role in problem solving, assuming on some occasions the role of acting Secretary of State, while declining repeated offers from Roosevelt to serve on the Supreme Court.

Riding a wave of popular support for fellow Republican Roosevelt, Taft won an easy victory in his 1908 bid for the presidency.

James Gilmore "Jim" Backus (February 25, 1913 – July 3, 1989) was an American radio, television, film, and voice actor. Among his most famous roles are the voice of nearsighted cartoon character Mr. Magoo, the rich Hubert Updike III on the radio version of The Alan Young Show, Joan Davis's character's husband (a domestic court judge) on TV's I Married Joan, James Dean's character's father in Rebel Without a Cause and Thurston Howell, III on the 1960s sitcom Gilligan's Island. He also starred in his own show of one season, The Jim Backus Show, also known as Hot off the Wire.

An avid golfer, Backus made the 36-hole cut at the 1964 Bing Crosby Pro-Am tournament.

James Gilmore Backus was born February 25, 1913 in Cleveland, Ohio, and raised in Bratenahl, Ohio, a wealthy village surrounded by greater Cleveland. He was the son of Russell Gould Backus, a mechanical engineer, and Daisy Gilmore (née Taylor) Backus. Backus was expelled from the Kentucky Military Institute for riding a horse through the mess hall.^{[citation needed]}

Dennis Jon McKenna (born December 17, 1950) is an American ethnopharmacologist, author and brother to well-known psychedelics proponent Terence McKenna.

McKenna's research led to the development of natural products for Aveda Corporation as well as greater awareness of natural products and medicines. He has authored numerous scientific articles and books. He co-authored The Invisible Landscape with his brother Terence and Botanical Medicines: the Desk Reference for Major Herbal Supplements with Kenneth Jones and Kerry Hughes. McKenna spent a number of years as a senior lecturer for the Center for Spirituality and Healing, part of the Academic Health Center at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities. He is now a senior research scientist for the Natural Health Products Research Group at the British Columbia Institute of Technology in the Vancouver area.

McKenna received his Master's degree in botany at the University of Hawaii in 1979. He received his Doctorate in Botanical Sciences in 1984 from the University of British Columbia, where he wrote a dissertation entitled Monoamine oxidase inhibitors in Amazonian hallucinogenic plants: ethnobotanical, phytochemical, and pharmacological investigations. His research has included the pharmacology, botany, and chemistry of ayahuasca and oo-koo-hé, the subjects of his master's thesis. He has also conducted extensive fieldwork in the Peruvian, Colombian, and Brazilian Amazon.