Daniel Irvin "Dan" Rather, Jr. (born October 31, 1931) is an American journalist and the former news anchor for the CBS Evening News. He is now managing editor and anchor of the television news magazine Dan Rather Reports on the cable channel HDNet. Rather was anchor of the CBS Evening News for 24 years, from March 9, 1981, to March 9, 2005. He also contributed to CBS's 60 Minutes. Rather became embroiled in controversy about a disputed news report involving President Bush's Vietnam-era service in the National Guard and subsequently left CBS Evening News in 2005, and he left the network altogether after 43 years in 2006.
Daniel Irvin Rather, Jr. (/ˈræðər/) was born on October 31, 1931, in Wharton County, Texas, the son of Daniel Irvin Rather, Sr., and the former Byrl Veda Page. The Rathers moved to Houston, and Dan attended Love Elementary School and Hamilton Middle School. He graduated in 1949 from John H. Reagan High School in Houston. In 1953, he received a bachelor's degree in journalism from Sam Houston State University where he was editor of the school newspaper, The Houstonian. At Sam Houston, he was a member of the Caballeros – the founding organization of the currently active Epsilon Psi chapter of the Sigma Chi fraternity. After obtaining his undergraduate degree, Rather briefly attended South Texas College of Law in Houston, which later awarded him an honorary Juris Doctor in 1990. In 1954, Rather enlisted in the United States Marine Corps, but was soon discharged because of having had rheumatic fever as a child .
Howard Allan Stern (born January 12, 1954) is an American radio personality, television host, author, actor and photographer best known for his radio show which was nationally syndicated from 1986 to 2005. He gained wide recognition in the 1990s where he was labeled a "shock jock" for his outspoken and sometimes controversial style. Stern has been exclusive to Sirius XM Radio, a subscription-based satellite radio service, since 2006. The son of a former recording and radio engineer, Stern wished to pursue a career in radio at the age of five. While at Boston University he worked at the campus station WTBU before a brief stint at WNTN in Newton, Massachusetts.
He developed his on-air personality when he landed positions at WRNW in Briarcliff Manor, WCCC in Hartford and WWWW in Detroit. In 1981, he was paired with his current newscaster and co-host Robin Quivers at WWDC in Washington, D.C. Stern then moved to WNBC in New York City in 1982 to host afternoons until his firing in 1985. He re-emerged on WXRK that year, and became one of the most popular radio personalities during his 20-year tenure at the station. Stern's show is the most-fined radio program, after the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) issued fines to station licensees for allegedly indecent material that totaled $2.5 million. Stern has won Billboard's Nationally Syndicated Air Personality of the Year award eight times, and is one of the highest-paid figures in radio.
Michael Thomas "Tom" Green (born July 30, 1971) is a Canadian actor, rapper, writer, comedian, talk show host and media personality. Best known for his shock humour brand of comedy, Green found mainstream prominence via his MTV television show The Tom Green Show. Green was also in the public eye for his short-lived marriage to actress Drew Barrymore, and for his roles in such films as Freddy Got Fingered, Road Trip, Stealing Harvard and Charlie's Angels.
In June 2003, Green had the chance to guest-host the Late Show with David Letterman which led to him hosting his own late-night talk show on MTV entitled The New Tom Green Show. From 2006-2011, he hosted his internet talk show Tom Green's House Tonight from his living room and, as of January 2010, has started performing stand-up comedy.
Green was born in Pembroke, Ontario, the son of Mary Jane, a communications consultant, and Richard Green, a computer systems analyst and retired army captain. He grew up on a Canadian Army base near Pembroke, Ontario and later lived in Gloucester, Ontario (now part of the City of Ottawa) where he attended Colonel By Secondary School. Green studied television broadcasting at Algonquin College and graduated in 1994.
Loretta Lynn (born Loretta Webb April 14, 1932), is an American country music singer-songwriter, author and philanthropist. Born in Butcher Hollow, near Paintsville, Kentucky in Johnson County to a coal miner father, Lynn married at 15 years old, was a mother soon after, and moved to Washington with her husband, Oliver Vanetta Lynn, Jr. (1926–1996), nicknamed "Doo". Their marriage was sometimes tumultuous; he had affairs and she was headstrong. Their experiences together became inspiration for her music.
On her 21st birthday, Lynn's husband bought her a $17.00 Harmony guitar. She taught herself to play and when she was 24, on her wedding anniversary, Doo encouraged her to become a singer. She learned the guitar better, started singing at the Delta Grange Hall in Washington State with the Pen Brothers' band, The Westerners, then eventually cut her first record in February, 1960. She became a part of the country music scene in Nashville in the 1960s, and in 1967 charted her first of 16 number-one hits (out of 70 charted songs as a solo artist and a duet partner) that include "Don't Come Home A' Drinkin' (With Lovin' on Your Mind)", "You Ain't Woman Enough", "Fist City", and "Coal Miner's Daughter". She focused on blue collar women's issues with themes of philandering husbands and persistent mistresses, and pushed boundaries in the conservative genre of country music by singing about birth control ("The Pill"), repeated childbirth ("One's on the Way"), double standards for men and women ("Rated "X""), and being widowed by the draft during the Vietnam War ("Dear Uncle Sam"). Country music radio stations often refused to play her songs. Nonetheless, she became known as "The First Lady of Country Music" and continues to be one of the most successful vocalists of all time.
Dolly Rebecca Parton (born January 19, 1946) is an American singer-songwriter, author, multi-instrumentalist, actress and philanthropist, best known for her work in country music. As a songwriter, she has composed over 3,000 songs, the best known of which include "I Will Always Love You" (a two-time U.S. country chart-topper for Parton, as well an international pop hit for Whitney Houston), "Jolene", "Coat of Many Colors", "9 to 5" and "My Tennessee Mountain Home". As an actress, she starred in the movies 9 to 5, The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas, Steel Magnolias, Straight Talk, Unlikely Angel and Joyful Noise. She is one of the most successful female country artists of all time; with an estimated 100 million in album sales, Dolly Parton is also one of the best selling artists of all time. She is known as "The Queen of Country Music".
She was born in Sevierville, Tennessee, the fourth of twelve children of Avie Lee Parton (née Owens; October 5, 1923 – December 5, 2003) and Robert Lee Parton (March 22, 1921 – November 12, 2000), a tobacco farmer. Her siblings are: Willadeene Parton (born March 24, 1940), David Wilburn Parton (born March 30, 1942), Coy Denver "Denver" Parton (born August 16, 1943), Bobby Lee Parton (born February 18, 1948), Stella Mae Parton (born May 4, 1949), Cassie Nan Parton (February 12, 1951), Randel Huston "Randy" Parton (born December 15, 1953), Larry Gerald Parton (born and died July 6, 1955), Floyd and Frieda Estelle Parton (born June 1, 1957), and Rachel Ann Parton (born August 31, 1959). Her family was, as she has described them, "dirt poor". She outlined her family's lack of money in a number of her early songs, notably "Coat of Many Colors" and "In the Good Old Days (When Times Were Bad)". They lived in a rustic, dilapidated one-room cabin in Locust Ridge, Tennessee, a hamlet just north of the Greenbrier Valley, in the Locust Ridge area of the Great Smoky Mountains in Sevier County, a predominantly Pentecostal area.