Ross Lockridge Jr. Edgar Meyer Sylvia Mcnair

50 FAMOUS IU ALUMNI L-P Ross Lockridge Jr. Author Ross Lockridge Jr. is the author of Raintree County, a 1,060-page epic many have called The Great American Novel. Graduating from IU in 1935 with a 4.33 grade point average—the highest GPA ever accumulated at the university— Lockridge entered a doctoral program at Harvard in 1940, announcing he would write a dissertation on Walt Whitman. In reality, he began writing Raintree County. In 1946, he carried the 20-pound manuscript to publisher Houghton Mifflin in a suitcase. Within five weeks the novel was excerpted in Life magazine, won an enormous monetary prize and movie contract from MGM Studios, and was the Main Selection of the Book-of-the-Month Club. But the publisher, the studio, and the book club wanted significant cuts and revisions. Lockridge, already depressed, found the situation unbearable. The day before his novel was announced as the No. 1 national bestseller, he took his own life. Courtesy photo His obituary was carried on the front Photo by Roni Griffith page of The New York Times. —C.S. Sylvia McNair Edgar Meyer Singer MacArthur ‘Genius’ Grammy Award–winning opera singer Musician and recitalist Sylvia McNair has performed in the great concert halls of A groundbreaking virtuoso of the Europe and America, with the world’s double bass, Edgar Meyer first most famous conductors, before the U.S. learned to play from his father— Supreme Court, and at the 80th birthday the string orchestra director for celebration of Pope John Paul II. the public schools in Oak Ridge, McNair, who received a Master of Tennessee—and went on to study Music degree with distinction from the with Stuart Sankey at the IU School Indiana University School of Music in of Music. 1983, had her operatic debut as Sandrina He has since performed and in L’infedeltà delusa in 1982. recorded extensively in the rarefied A soprano, she went on to enjoy a realm of solo classical bassists and prolific opera career during which she was a member of the progressive recorded more than 70 albums. For years, bluegrass supergroup Strength in she performed at the Metropolitan Opera Numbers with Béla Fleck, Sam Bush, in New York, as well as at the Vienna Mark O’Connor, and Jerry Douglas. State Opera and the San Francisco He has also composed music alone Opera, among others. and collaboratively that crisscrossed For a time, McNair served on the IU through genres of bluegrass, jazz, and Jacobs School of Music voice faculty. classical, which have earned him a She currently resides in Bloomington MacArthur “Genius” Fellowship and and volunteers for several charitable five Grammy Awards. organizations. —S.B. In 2020, he collaborated with Yo-Yo Ma, Stuart Duncan, and Chris Thile for the second time on an album called Not Our First Goat Rodeo. —T.Z.T. Photo by Jim McGuire 86 Bloom | August/September 2021 | magbloom.com 50 FAMOUS IU ALUMNI L-P Sherman Minton Ryan Murphy Supreme Court Justice Television Honcho Sherman Minton, a one-term Ryan Murphy, best known Democratic U.S. senator born in for creating and producing Georgetown, Indiana, is the last popular television series such member of Congress to have been as Nip/Tuck (2003–10), Glee appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court. (2009–15), and American Horror When Minton attended IU in the Story (2011–present), studied early 1900s, he was in good company. journalism at IU in the mid- Among his friends were future 1980s. While a student, he was a governor of Indiana Paul V. McNutt member of the Singing Hoosiers and future presidential candidate and interned in the style section Wendell L. Willkie. at The Washington Post. He went Minton graduated from IU in on to work as a journalist before 1913 and earned a law degree in 1915. beginning scriptwriting in the late From 1935 to 1941, he served in the 1990s. He started his career in U.S. Senate, where he befriended television with the teen comedy Harry Truman. In 1949, Truman Popular, which debuted on The had an opportunity to fill a vacancy WB in 1999. on the U.S. Supreme Court. He Murphy has received six nominated Minton. Primetime Emmy Awards and has Serving just seven years on the been called “the most powerful court, Minton was key in at least man” in modern television. one major ruling—Brown v. Board of He recently signed the largest Education. He died in 1965. —C.S. developmental deal in television history with Netflix, to the tune of $300 million. —C.S. Photo by Alex Oliveira/Peabody Awards Photo courtesy of the National Archives (CC BY 2.0) Paul H. O’Neill Jane Pauley Treasury Secretary Broadcast Journalist Former Treasury Secretary Paul Born in Indianapolis in 1950, award- H. O’Neill was the son of an Army winning journalist Jane Pauley took sergeant who grew up on military just one journalism class before bases all over the United States. He graduating with a B.A. in political finished high school in Anchorage, science from IU in 1972. Alaska, and college at California She began her career at State University, Fresno, before WISH-TV in Indianapolis before earning his master’s in public moving to Chicago to become the administration from IU. first female co-anchor of a major O’Neill began his public evening newscast. Just 10 months service career at the Veterans later she was chosen to replace Administration, followed by the U.S. Barbara Walters on the Today show, Office of Management and Budget, beginning a long network television where he later became deputy news career. director. He was appointed Secretary Pauley made history again of the Treasury by President George when, in 2016, she replaced Charles W. Bush in 2001. Osgood as the host of CBS Sunday The tensions and conflicts Morning, making her the only that arose when he held that female anchor of a Sunday morning position—particularly regarding his news program. perspective on the war on Iraq—were An author, actress, and mental illuminated in the 2004 book The health advocate, Pauley is married Price of Loyalty by Ron Suskind. to cartoonist Garry Trudeau, creator A year before O’Neill died in 2020 of the comic strip Doonesbury. at age 84, IU renamed its School of —C.S. Public and Environmental Affairs in Photo by Michael Geissinger, courtesy his honor. —T.Z.T. of the Library of Congress Photo by Michele Crowe/CBS magbloom.com | August/September 2021 | Bloom 87.

Load more