Famous UW folks

Granted, as the main university in Washington state, the majority collge-bound teenagers in the Seattle area probably attended the University of Washington. So, the odds are pretty strong that anyone famous coming from Washington **probably** has a degree from U.W.

That said, there were a lot (30%) of the U.W. alumni listed in the "famous living 100" article in a recent edition of the alumni magazine (Columns; June 2008) that I'd actually heard of -- or at least, heard of the thing they're famous for:


-Beverly Cleary (author of Beezus & Ramona, Henry Huggins, The Mouse and the Motorcycle, etc.)

-Rick Steves (travel writer)

-Kim Thayil (guitarist for Soundgarden)

-Tim Paterson (wrote the original MS-DOS -- which I think Bill Gates had sub-contracted to him, for a few thousand bucks...)

-Brad Fitzpatrick (created the LiveJournal website)

-Booth Gardner (former Gov. of Washington)

-Kitty Kelley (biographer of politicians)

-Dale Chihuly (glassblowing guy)

-Chris DeWolfe (co-founded MySpace webpage)

-David Horsey (local cartoonist)

-Dawn Wells (played Mary Ann on Gilligan's Island)

-Dan Evans (Senator)

-Norm Rice (former mayor of Seattle)

-Patrick Duffy (actor on the t.v. show Dallas)

-John Carlson (the guy who spearheaded the I-200 anti-Affirmative Action initiative; hmm...)

-Jean Smart (actor in Designing Women, plus others)

-Norm Dicks (Congressdude)

-Margarethe Cammermeyer (came out that she was gay, and got discharged from the National Guard; led to a lawsuit, which clarified [locally] that the ban on hommosexuals in the military was unconstitutional)

-Julia Sweeney (played Pat on Saturday Night Live, plus other stuff)

-Wayne Quninton (in addition to many bioengineering things, also invented the treadmill[!!! - interesting! I guess it must've been invented by **someone**...])

-Tom Foley (politician dude)

-David Guterson (wrote Snow Falling on Cedars, which was also a movie)

-Ann Rule (crime fiction)

-Peter Adkinson (founder of Wizards of the Coast [Maogic: the Gathering])

-Albert Rosellini (former Gov. of WA, way back in the day)

-Loren Carpenter (co-founder of Pixar)

-Richard Karn (actor who was the sidekick to Tim Allen on the Home Improvement t.v. series)

-Jeffrey Brotman (co-founder of Costco)

-Christine Gregoire (current Gov. of WA)

-Kenny G (famous jazz saxophonist)

-Irv Robbins (co-founder of Baskin-Robbins ice cream; recently deceased, so listed elsewhere in this issue)


Some people also nominated Bruce Lee, which the editors of the U.W. alumni magazine nixed because he wasn't living, and because he only attended for a few years, but didn't graduate. Actually, according to the dictionary (American Heritage, 1987-ish), to be an alum doesn't require you to have graduated from that school -- just attended.


BTW,back in 2001, some members of the Earth Liberation Front burned down Merrill Hall at the UW Center for Urban Horticulture, mistakenly thinking that genetically modified plants were being created there.

This was incorrect. Instead, the arsonists managed to wipe out one-quarter of the world's population of an endangered plant species. Doh! Gotta get the facts, radical activist folks...

They're in the process of being convicted.


--GG