142. Minnesota's First State Folklorist

Folklorist and professor emerita of English Ellen Stekert joined the UMN Twin Cities English faculty after recording four folk albums in the 1950s. Stekert is cited as a seminal member of the ’50s folk revival and was namedropped by Bob Dylan in his memoir as an early musical influence. Appointed Minnesota’s first state folklorist, Stekert continued performing into her 80s.

143. One of America’s Most-Performed Composers

Libby Larsen earned three degrees from the UMN Twin Cities School of Music before becoming one of America’s most-performed living composers. A Grammy winner with more than 500 works to her name, Larsen has written operas, orchestral, chamber, and vocal works. In 1973, while still a graduate student, Larsen cofounded the Minnesota Composers Forum, which grew into the national American Composers Forum.

144. Garfield's Voice

You might know Lorenzo Music as the voice of Garfield on the television cartoon series. But before he hated Mondays as a lazy cat, Music attended UMD, where he majored in English and speech. He also met his future wife and collaborator Myrna Johnson, aka Henrietta Music. After touring the countrytogether as a comedy act, Music broke into television as a writer and actor on the Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour and the Mary Tyler Moore Show before cocreating the Bob Newhart Show.

145. Minnesota Visionary

Famed nature photographer Jim Brandenburg launched his artistic practice as an art student at UMD. His award-winning photography, which appeared in National Geographic, was known for spare, intimate images of wolves and northern landscapes.

146. Juror No. 8

Henry Fonda was the son of a Nebraska printer who enrolled at UMN Twin Cities hoping to become a journalist. Instead, he became one of Hollywood’s defining actors—starring in more than 80 films, including The Grapes of Wrath and 12 Angry Men—before winning an Oscar for On Golden Pond.

147. The Hmong Migration

Cy Thao’s passions for art and politics were nurtured at UMN Morris. He helped found the Center for Hmong Arts and Talent and served in the Minnesota legislature. His artwork, “The Hmong Migration,” is a 50-painting series that traces Hmong history through resettlement in Minnesota.

148. Broadway Giant

Stage actress Hilda Simms was born into a family of Creole descent in Minneapolis and studied English at UMN Twin Cities. Simms moved to New York City where she joined the American Negro Theater in Harlem and became a breakout Broadway star in Anna Lucasta—one of the first Black theatrical productions that didn't focus on issues of race. 

149. Won't You Take Me To

UMN Morris graduate Cynthia Johnson brought unusual chops to the university choir: The 1976 Miss Black Minnesota winner had already fronted the Prince-adjacent band Flyte Tyme before she enrolled. Not long after graduation, she recorded the song “Funkytown” with her new band, Lipps Inc. In 1980, the song charted at number one in 28 countries and ultimately sold more than 25 million copies worldwide.

150. On the Air in Cincinnati

While studying art at UMN Twin Cities, Loni Anderson honed her acting chops at Minnesota institutions like the Chanhassen Dinner Theater. Later she made a name for herself as the receptionist on WKRP in Cincinnati—a role she turned down until producers agreed to rewrite the character as “the smartest person in the room.”

151. Spider Man

“Spider” John Koerner enrolled as an engineering student at UMN Twin Cities, but soon migrated to the local folk scene. He teamed up with Dave Ray and Tony Glover and recorded the 1963 album Blues, Rags & Hollers. A musician’s musician, Koerner influenced not only Bob Dylan, who encountered him in Minneapolis, but performers ranging from John Lennon to David Bowie.

152. Toy Storyteller

Pixar Chief Creative Officer Pete Docter began life as a dreamer in Bloomington who obsessed over animated flip books and homemade films. After a year at UMN Twin Cities, Docter moved to California and eventually landed at Pixar, where he worked on pretty much everything: Monsters, Inc.; Up; Inside Out; not to mention Toy Story.

153. Alice's Art

Alice Tweed donated a house in Duluth’s Chester Park and a 300-painting collection that became the Tweed Memorial Art Collection at UMD. Today the Tweed Museum of Art is located on the UMN Duluth campus.

154. Liar, Liar

Jim Donna formed The Castaways while studying at UMN Twin Cities and put his education on hold when a song he cowrote, “Liar, Liar,” became a 1965 breakaway hit.

155. Choose Life

Morris-born Mona Lyn Reese, a 1973 UMN Morris alum, built a career as a composer of opera, orchestra, and choral music. As composer-in-residence at the Minnesota Opera in the 1990s, Reese arranged works for touring productions and helped students create operas. Her dramatic oratorio Choose Life, Uvacharta Bachayim, an interfaith Holocaust memorial, was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize in 1995, and her works have been performed by orchestras throughout the world.

156. A Photorealist Painter

UMN Morris professor John Stuart Ingle painted lifelike still lives with a photorealist technique—in watercolor paint. His work hangs in collections at museums including New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art.

157. Lesbian Art in America

After Harmony Hammond earned her BFA from UMN Twin Cities in 1967, she moved to New York City and became a central figure in the feminist and queer arts scene. In 1972, she cofounded A.I.R. Gallery, the city’s first women’s cooperative art gallery. Hammond also helped define the burgeoning feminist and lesbian arts through her writing and curation. Her book, Lesbian Art in America, published in 2000, is a definitive history of the field.

158. Cartwright!

Born in Minneapolis in 1929, James Hong studied civil engineering at UMN Twin Cities before heading to Hollywood, where the actor-director-producer built a record-breaking career with more than 600 credits to his name. Hong’s movie credits include Chinatown, Blade Runner, and Big Trouble in Little China; his TV credits range from The New Adventures of Charlie Chan to All in the Family to Seinfeld.

159. Argento's Arias

Dominick Argento joined the UMN Twin Cities faculty in 1958. For nearly four decades, Argento composed a body of work, especially in lyric opera, that defined him as one of the nation’s preeminent composers. In 1975, he won a Pulitzer Prize for his song cycle from the Diary of Virginia Woolf.

160. Minnesota, Still for Thee

“Hail! Minnesota” was written by Truman Rickard, a 1904 UMN Twin Cities grad. A year later, student Arthur Upson added a second verse. It became the official anthem for the state of Minnesota in 1945.

161. Diva Mexicana

The daughter of UMN Twin Cities art professor Allen Downs and Mixtec singer Anita Sánchez, Lila Downs built a performing and songwriting career exploring the mix of cultures she has experienced in her own life. Downs earned a degree in voice and anthropology before becoming an internationally celebrated performer and Grammy winner. Her music blends Mexican folk traditions, Indigenous languages, ranchera, jazz, blues, and American roots.

162. Grandmother Water Woman

At the end of the 19th century, an Indian boarding school stood on the site of what is now UMN Morris. In 2018, an Anishinaabe sculptor whose grandmother had attended the school carved an 18,000-pound sculpture on campus to honor the lives of Native Americans who passed through its doors. Duane “Dewey” Goodwin described his sculpture, titled Nokoomis Nibii Equay, or “Grandmother Water Woman,” as a testament to the resilience of American Indian culture.

163. Leading Man

Ernst Carlton Brimmer attended UMN Twin Cities before moving to Los Angeles and changing his name to Richard Dix. The square-jawed actor went on to become a seminal Hollywood leading man in both silent movies and talkies.

164. Tish, You Spoke French

John Astin—aka Gomez Addams on The Addams Family—pursued a graduate degree in English at UMN Twin Cities before launching an acting career on stage and screen.

165. Beloved

Kimberly Elise, a UMN Twin Cities alum, drew major attention for her performance in Beloved and went on to a long film and TV career.

166. Let It Go

Santino Fontana, a UMN/Guthrie BFA Actor Training Program alum, voiced the character Hans in Disney’s Frozen and won a Best Actor Tony for his role in the 2019 musical Tootsie.

167. All-Synth Atmospherics

Greek-born Yanni Chryssomallis earned a B.A. in psychology from UMN Twin Cities in 1976 before bcoming a full-time musician. After a stint with the Minneapolis rock band Chameleon, Chryssomallis—known simply as Yanni—released an atmospheric all-synth instrumental album that became his ticket to stardom. His 1994 concert film “Live at the Acropolis” was seen in 65 countries by an estimated 500 million people, while his albums have sold more than 25 million copies worldwide.

168. More Than 7,000 Pipes

Completed in 1936, Northrop’s Aeolian-Skinner pipe organ is one of the great concert hall pipe organs in the U.S. The late-Romantic instrument stands about 40 feet tall and contains more than 7,000 pipes. (The largest is 30 feet tall; the smallest is the size of a pencil.) It’s an unusually intact example of its builder’s craft. Nearly lost to disrepair by the 1970s, the organ was later removed during Northrop’s renovation and reinstalled in 2018 in chambers above the stage.

169. Pop Artist

Before he became known for his oversized paintings, pop artist James Rosenquist was a student at UMN Twin Cities and a sign painter, creating advertisements for Phillips 66 stations in his native North Dakota and later, billboards in Times Square. He’s seen as a pillar of the Pop Art genre.

170. Drag Race Star

Manila Luzon studied graphic design at UMD before becoming an internationally known drag performer and RuPaul’s Drag Race finalist.

171. Hellboy

With an M.A. in theater arts from UMN Twin Cities, Ron Perlman pursued an acting career that ultimately landed him a role in the long-running TV series Beauty and the Beast. Later Perlman starred in the Hellboy movie franchise.

172. First Best Supporting Actress

Gale Sondergaard, a 1921 UMN Twin Cities graduate from Litchfield, became the first woman ever to win the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. After training in theater at Minnesota and on the New York stage, Sondergaard made her film debut in Anthony Adverse and won the historic Oscar in 1937.

173. Tuning the Room

UMD’s Weber Music Hall, which opened in 2002, has the signature flair you would expect from architect César Pelli, whose reputation towered as high as the many urban landmarks he designed. But the music hall’s striking copper dome is more than a visual statement: Inside, the dome and other carefully designed architectural elements make the concert hall a state-of-the- art listening experience.

174. Howdy Doody

E. Roger Muir earned a photography degree from UMN Twin Cities and, after serving in World War II, became a television producer. Of the many shows he worked on, Muir is best known as the creator and executive producer of the Howdy Doody show.

175. Closing In on EGOT

Jessica Lange, who studied art at UMN Twin Cities, has won the Triple Crown of Acting—winning Oscar, Emmy, and Tony awards.

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