Strangest/most unexpected famous alumni from your alma mater?

Parent Cafe
61

It’s a little weird but my alma mater is best known as a very strong STEM school. Much less widely known is that it has a super strong drama program. So I just searched for famous STEM graduates and only came up with Judith Resnick (astronaut from the Challenger disaster; I vividly remember being in the gym at school working out when the news was broadcast over the radio and all the clanking from the weights stopped while there was stunned silence).

The arts and drama side side is ridiculous, with alums like Andy Warhol, Kurt Vonnegut, Ted Danson, Stephen Bochco, Zachary Quinto, etc.

62

Kirk Douglas (recently donated a new dorm), Viggo Mortensen are the two most famous.

I think the most interesting is J. Kimball Gannon - one of the composers of the song, “I’ll Be Home for Christmas.” (he also wrote the school’s Alma Mater) In his will he stipulated that after his wife died 30% of his royalties should go to the college. Last year alone they made almost $30,000 and since his wife dies in 2000 they have made over $450,000. Pretty good for a tiny LAC!

63

Also Harry S. Dent, Lee Atwater, Leeza Gibbons, Ainsley Earhardt (sp?), Jasper Johns, several athletes - most interesting is Ronnie Bass who was quarterback in movie Remember the Titans, lots of state level politicians who are not at national level, Robert McNair.

Some of these are more interesting that exciting.

64

My favorite is Bobby Farrelly of the Farrelly brothers, the guys who did “Shallow Hal” and “There’s Something About Mary.”

The most recent notable is Matt Patricia, currently on his way from the New England Patriots to be head coach of the Detroit Lions. Not bad for a guy coming out of a low-rated D3 program with an engineering degree.

65

@bookworm Just read a book about Entebbe and Yoni Netanyahu. :(. Wouldn’t have known exactly who he was until then.

66

So many to choose from! Renee Richards. Root Boy Slim (of Root Boy Slim and the Sex Change Band). Aaron Burr (not that one) and Ronald Reagan (not that one, either).

67

Ted Kaczynski

68

66. That one's so easy! @mathmom named him pages ago.

How about Imperial Japanese Navy Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto?

69

@anomander - your list looks like DS’s alma mater but there are plenty of famous STEM graduates that I recognize, but maybe that’s because I’ve been cognizant of those graduates once he was accepted. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Carnegie_Mellon_University_people John Forbes Nash (A Beautiful Mind), Randy Pausch (The Last Lecture), Luis von Ahn (cofounder of Duolingo), Carmen Yulín Cruz (mayor of San Juan, Puerto Rico), and a number of others that I ought to know, like James Gosling, the founder of Java programming language.

The list of artistic graduates/attendees is impressive.

70

My own alma mater has far too many to start to mention: http://alumnus.alumni.umich.edu/notable-alumni/ I like that they have a category for astronauts! And that all three crew members of Apollo 15 were alumni.

71

The most famous alumni from UVa which every student should know by heart:

Edgar Allan Poe
Katie Couric
Tina Fey (wild card! haha)

72

Poe attended the University of Virginia for one semester but left due to lack of money and later failed as a cadet at West Point.

73

My bad. I tried to do a search before posting, but search on last name, not Unabomber L-)

74

I’m not sure who would be unusual or strange, but some of the most famous that come to mind are Bobby Bowden and Don Cathy.

75

Billy Crudup.
Of course, I had to Google “famous…”. There are many but they aren’t unusual or unexpected necessarily.

76

T. Boone Pickens
Anita Hill
Garth Brooks
James Marsden
Dr. H. Edward Roberts, engineer and inventor of the personal computer
Don Haskins - the most surprising of the many athletic famous alumni

77

Bill Engvall. I remember him announcing the basketball games.