Glenn Victory Tredwell was born on VE Day, May 8, 1945 in Philadelphia, PA. He grew up in a close family in the Philadelphia area and attended Temple University. He later graduated from the University of Miami with a degree in landscape architecture and had a two decade long career in landscaping in Florida.
John G. Tryon was born December 18, 1920 and grew up in Washington, D.C., the oldest of three sons. His father worked with the National Bituminous Coal Commission during the Depression and his mother was editor of the American Association of University Women's Publications.
Eugene Williams was born June 15, 1944 into a musical family and grew up in Fresno, California. His mother and father were both singers, and he and his siblings grew up singing. Williams sang in the church choir before forming his own groups, the Vells and the Precision Six. Buck Ram signed Williams to the Platters in 1970, with whom he performed for eighteen years.
Louise Lorenzi Fountain was born Nov. 14, 1913 in La Belle, Missouri to David Lorenzi, a French immigrant, and Julia Travese. Her younger years were devoted to helping her father develop and manage Lorenzi Lake Park, which he built and opened in 1926.
Judith Lee Johnson Jones was born September 13, 1940 and spent her childhood in Oklahoma and Texas. In 1958, she was one of the winners of the Houston’s Chronicle contest that added the Texas Copa Girls to perform at the Sands Hotel and Casino. For Jones, the experience was a period of fun-filled freedom, followed by relentless encouragement from others to attend college, which she reluctantly did. To her surprise, she embraced college life, took her studies seriously, and received an education degree. She also became Miss Houston.
Joan Massagli was born January 26, 1938 and spent her childhood in Tacoma, Washington singing three-part harmony—a member of a musically talented family that included five children as well as an aunt and uncle who raised all the kids to enjoy music. By high school in the early 1950s, she and her two older sisters were regulars on a local TV show.
Donna Newsom was born November 06, 1932 and spent her childhood in Georgia and Florida. Her family moved many times, following her father’s work opportunities. Newsom had a close relationship with her father and the two had many adventures together.
Alex De Castroverde group up proud of his Cuban ancestry and embraced his parents’ stories of coming to be Americans.
Both parents, Vivian and Waldo De Castroverde, were teenagers as Fidel Castro came to power in Cuba. Waldo actively fought against the Castro regime as a CIA trained paratrooper; during which he was arrested and was imprisoned for two years. Vivian was one of thousands of young Cubans who quietly entered the United States through Operation Peter Pan in the early 1960s.
Mary McCoy was born March 03, 1948 in Lancaster, New York. Her family moved to Las Vegas, Nevada on December 26, 1959. After graduating from Basic High School, McCoy immediately enrolled at Nevada Southern University, which was in the midst of growing into the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV). During the summer of 1967, she worked at the university's library moving books into the expanded facility. Though she altered her studies program from education to English, she continued to work at the library and continued the job after graduation.