This is a list of the people born in, residents of, or otherwise closely associated with the American city of Columbia,

Missouri Missouri (''see #Etymology and pronunciation, pronunciation'') is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. Ranking List of U.S. states and territories by area, 21st in land area, it border ...

, and its surrounding metropolitan area.

Attending college in Columbia

Many people have lived in Columbia temporarily, while attending one of the city's institutions of higher education; such people are not included in this list. For lists of people who attended college in Columbia see: * List of Columbia College alumni * List of Stephens College alumni * List of University of Missouri alumni

A–D

James William Abert James William Abert (November 18, 1820 – August 10, 1897) was an American soldier, explorer, bird collector and topographical artist. Early life Abert, the son of John James Abert,Thomas M. Allen – clergyman *

Benjamin Anderson Benjamin McAlester Anderson Jr. (May 1, 1886 – January 19, 1949) was an American economist of the Austrian School. Early life and education Benjamin Anderson was born in Columbia, Missouri on May 1, 1886, to Benjamin McLean Anderson, a busi ...

– economist * Gary Anderson – football player *

Judy Baker Judith W. Baker (born April 10, 1960) is an American Democratic politician, small business owner, and educator from Missouri. She is a former member of the Missouri House of Representatives and a former Region VII Director for the United States ...

– politician * Simon Barrett – filmmaker * Matt Bartle – politician *

Rob Benedict Rob Benedict (born September 21, 1970) is an American actor and writer. His near 30 year career includes more than 90 television and movie credits. He is best known for his work on the television series ''Supernatural (American TV series), Su ...

– actor *

Duane Benton William Duane Benton (born September 8, 1950), known professionally as Duane Benton, is a United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit. Education Benton graduated from Northwestern University with a ...

– judge *

Rebecca Blank Rebecca Margaret Blank (September 19, 1955 – February 17, 2023) was an American economist and academic administrator. She was the ninth chancellor of the University of Wisconsin–Madison from 2013 to 2022. She served in several senior roles ...

– educator;

U.S. Secretary of Commerce The United States secretary of commerce (SecCom) is the head of the United States Department of Commerce. The secretary serves as the principal advisor to the president of the United States on all matters relating to commerce. The secretary rep ...

* Philemon Bliss – judge *

John William Boone John William "Blind" Boone (May 17, 1864 – October 4, 1927) was an American pianist and composer of ragtime music. Early life Boone was born in a Federal militia camp near Miami, Missouri, May 17, 1864, to a contraband slave, Rachel, who used ...

– musician * Stratton D. Brooks – college president * Fleda Brown – poet *

Jessica Capshaw Jessica Brooke Capshaw (born August 9, 1976) is an American actress known for her roles as Jamie Stringer on the ABC legal drama series ''The Practice'', and as Dr. Arizona Robbins on the ABC medical drama ''Grey's Anatomy''. Early life Caps ...

– actress *

Russ Carnahan John Russell Carnahan (born July 10, 1958) is an American politician from the state of Missouri. A member of the Democratic Party, he served as the U.S. representative for from 2005 to 2013. At the time, the district included the southern thir ...

– politician *

J'den Cox J'den Michael Tbory Cox (Help:IPA/English, /ˈdʒeɪdən/ Help:Pronunciation respelling key, ''JAY-dən'', born March 3, 1995) is an American retired Freestyle wrestling, freestyle wrestler and Folkstyle wrestling, folkstyle wrestler who compete ...

–

Olympic Olympic or Olympics may refer to Sports Competitions * Olympic Games, international multi-sport event held since 1896 ** Summer Olympic Games ** Winter Olympic Games * Ancient Olympic Games, ancient multi-sport event held in Olympia, Greece bet ...

freestyle wrestler Freestyle wrestling is a style of wrestling. It is one of two styles of wrestling contested in the Olympic Games, along with Greco-Roman wrestling, Greco-Roman. scholastic wrestling, High school wrestling and men's collegiate wrestling in the U ...

Kevin Croom Kevin Croom (born July 15, 1987) is an American mixed martial artist currently competing in the Lightweight division. A professional since 2009, he has fought in the UFC, Bellator, Titan FC, the RFA, the LFA, and CES MMA. Mixed martial arts car ...

– UFC

mixed martial artist Mixed martial arts (MMA) is a full-contact fighting sport based on striking and grappling; incorporating techniques from various combat sports from around the world. In the early 20th century, various inter-stylistic contests took place t ...

Jack D. Crouch Jack Dyer Crouch (October 22, 1915 – July 25, 1989) was an American entrepreneur and conglomerate organizer. Early life Crouch was born in Columbia, Missouri and served in the United States Army during World War II. Career Crouch co-found ...

– hotelier * Derek "Deke" Dickerson – musician

E–L

Carl Edwards Carl Michael Edwards Jr. (born August 15, 1979) is an American former professional stock car racing driver and a current analyst for ''NASCAR on Prime Video''. He last competed in the NASCAR Cup Series, NASCAR Sprint Cup Series, driving the No ...

– retired

NASCAR The National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing, LLC (NASCAR) is an American auto racing sanctioning and operating company that is best known for stock car racing. It is considered to be one of the top ranked motorsports organizations in ...

driver *

Jane Froman Ellen Jane Froman (November 10, 1907 – April 22, 1980) was an American actress and singer. During her thirty-year career, she performed on stage, radio, and television despite chronic health problems due to injuries sustained in a 1943 plane cr ...

– singer; actress *

Nicole Galloway Nicole Marie Galloway (née Rogge; born June 13, 1982) is an American accountant and politician who served as the state auditor of Missouri from 2015 to 2023. She was the Democratic nominee for Governor of Missouri in the 2020 election, losin ...

– politician *

Chuck Graham Charles Graham (February 24, 1965 – May 19, 2020) was an American politician in the Democratic Party (United States), Democratic Party who represented the 19th Senate District in the Missouri General Assembly, which includes the city of Columb ...

– politician * Ken Griffin – organist * Eugene Jerome Hainer –

Nebraska Nebraska ( ) is a landlocked U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. It borders South Dakota to the north; Iowa to the east and Missouri to the southeast, both across the Missouri River; Ka ...

politician * Jeff Harris – politician *

William Least Heat-Moon William Least Heat-Moon (born William Lewis Trogdon, August 27, 1939) is an American travel writer and historian. He describes his heritage as English, Irish, and Osage. He is the author of several books which chronicle unusual journeys throu ...

– writer *

Martin Heinrich Martin Trevor Heinrich ( ; born October 17, 1971) is an American businessman and politician serving as the senior United States senator from New Mexico, a seat he has held since 2013. A member of the Democratic Party, Heinrich served as the ...

– U.S. senator from New Mexico *

Peter Hessler Peter Benjamin Hessler (born June 14, 1969) is an American writer and journalist. He is the author of four books about China and has contributed numerous articles to ''The New Yorker'' and ''National Geographic'', among other publications. In 201 ...

– journalist * Darwin Hindman – mayor of Columbia (1995–2010) *

Brett James Brett James Cornelius (born June 5, 1968) is an American country music singer, songwriter, and record producer based in Nashville. James' compositions have been credited on 494 recordings by a wide variety of artists. Signed to Career Records (a ...

– singer * William Jewell – educator, second mayor of Columbia * Leon W. Johnson – Air Force general * Tyler Johnson – baseball pitcher * Daniel Webster Jones –

Mormon Mormons are a religious and cultural group related to Mormonism, the principal branch of the Latter Day Saint movement started by Joseph Smith in upstate New York during the 1820s. After Smith's death in 1844, the movement split into several ...

pioneer *

John Carleton Jones John Carleton Jones (July 30, 1856 – April 22, 1930) was an American educator and tenth president of the University of Missouri in Columbia, Missouri; in recognition, he was initiated as an honorary member of Acacia Fraternity. Though he held th ...

– president of the

University of Missouri The University of Missouri (Mizzou or MU) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Columbia, Missouri, United States. It is Missouri's largest university and the flagship of the four-campus Univers ...

* Lloyd E. Jones –

United States Army The United States Army (USA) is the primary Land warfare, land service branch of the United States Department of Defense. It is designated as the Army of the United States in the United States Constitution.Article II, section 2, clause 1 of th ...

major general *

Kraig Kann Kraig Kann (born on May 3, 1966, in LaGrange, Illinois) is a former on-air personality on Golf Channel, former chief communications officer of the LPGA, and current Managing Director of Kann Advisory Group and Host on SiriusXM PGA TOUR Radio.Golf C ...

– golf commentator * Henry Kirklin – horticulturalist, first black instructor at the University of Missouri *

Walt Koken Walt Koken (born October 9, 1946, Columbia, Missouri) is an American claw-hammer banjo player, fiddle A fiddle is a Bow (music), bowed String instrument, string musical instrument, most often a violin or a bass. It is a colloquial term for ...

(born 1946) – claw-hammer banjo player, fiddler, and singer *

Sergei Kopeikin Sergei Kopeikin (born April 10, 1956) is a USSR-born theoretical physicist and astronomer presently living and working in the United States, where he holds the position of Professor of Physics at the University of Missouri in Columbia, Missouri. ...

– astrophysicist * E. Stanley Kroenke – sports mogul *

Ken Lay Kenneth Lee Lay (April 15, 1942 – July 5, 2006) was an American businessman and political donor who was the founder, chief executive officer and chairman of Enron. He was heavily involved in Enron's accounting scandal that unraveled in 2001 ...

– chief executive,

Enron Enron Corporation was an American Energy development, energy, Commodity, commodities, and services company based in Houston, Texas. It was led by Kenneth Lay and developed in 1985 via a merger between Houston Natural Gas and InterNorth, both re ...

Grace Lee Grace Lee (; Lee Kyung-hee) is a South Korean-born Filipino film distributor, businesswoman, former television host and former radio disc jockey. She is one of a few Korean expatriates to appear prominently in Philippine television, other not ...

– radio and television personality * Guy Sumner Lowman, Jr. –

linguist Linguistics is the scientific study of language. The areas of linguistic analysis are syntax (rules governing the structure of sentences), semantics (meaning), Morphology (linguistics), morphology (structure of words), phonetics (speech sounds ...

M–S

Jeff Maggert Jeffrey Allan Maggert (born February 20, 1964) is an American professional golfer who plays on the PGA Tour Champions. Early life and amateur career Maggert was born in Columbia, Missouri. He was raised on a golf course in The Woodlands, Texa ...

– golfer * Howard Wight Marshall – professor, folk historian, fiddler *

William Rainey Marshall William Rainey Marshall (October 17, 1825January 8, 1896) was an American politician. He was the fifth Governor of Minnesota from January 8, 1866, to January 9, 1870, and was a member of the Republican party. He served as the Colonel of the 7t ...

– fifth

governor of Minnesota The governor of Minnesota is the head of government of the U.S. state of Minnesota, leading the state's executive branch. Forty people have been governor of Minnesota, though historically there were also three governors of Minnesota Territory ...

Don Nardo Don Nardo (born February 22, 1947) is an American historian, composer, and writer. With more than five hundred and forty published books, he is one of the most prolific authors in the United States, and one of the country's foremost writers of his ...

– author *

John Neihardt John Gneisenau Neihardt (January 8, 1881 – November 3, 1973) was an American writer and poet, amateur historian and ethnographer. Born at the end of the American settlement of the Plains, he became interested in the lives of those who had been ...

– poet * William L. Nelson – politician *

Korla Pandit Korla Pandit (born John Roland Redd; September 16, 1921 – October 2, 1998), was an American exotica musician, composer, pianist, and organist. After moving to California in the late 1940s and getting involved in show business, Redd became know ...

– musician * Carlos Pena Jr. – singer *

Jontay Porter Jontay Porter ( ; born November 15, 1999) is an American professional basketball player who last played for the Toronto Raptors of the National Basketball Association (NBA). He played college basketball for the Missouri Tigers men's basketball, ...

– basketball player *

Michael Porter Jr. Michael Lamar Porter Jr. (born June 29, 1998), also known as "MPJ", is an American professional basketball player for the Denver Nuggets of the National Basketball Association (NBA). He played college basketball for the Missouri Tigers. Porter ...

– basketball player for

Denver Nuggets The Denver Nuggets are an American professional basketball team based in Denver. The Nuggets compete in the National Basketball Association (NBA) as a member of the Northwest Division (NBA), Northwest Division of the Western Conference (NBA), W ...

* James S. Rollins – 19th-century politician * Jesse M. Roper – 19th-century naval officer * Charles Griffith Ross – press secretary for

U.S. President The president of the United States (POTUS) is the head of state and head of government of the United States. The president directs the Federal government of the United States#Executive branch, executive branch of the Federal government of t ...

Harry S. Truman Harry S. Truman (May 8, 1884December 26, 1972) was the 33rd president of the United States, serving from 1945 to 1953. As the 34th vice president in 1945, he assumed the presidency upon the death of Franklin D. Roosevelt that year. Subsequen ...

Felix Sabates Feliciano Sergio "Félix" Sabates Jr. (born September 9, 1945) is a Cuban-born former entrepreneur, and philanthropist living in the United States of America. He is a partner in Chip Ganassi Racing teams, which formerly fielded teams in the NASCA ...

–

philanthropist Philanthropy is a form of altruism that consists of "private initiatives for the public good, focusing on quality of life". Philanthropy contrasts with business initiatives, which are private initiatives for private good, focusing on material ...

* Therese Sander – farmer; politician * Max Schwabe – politician *

Jon Scott Jonathan Arthur Scott (born November 7, 1958) is an American television news anchor who hosts '' Fox Report Weekend'' on Fox News. Also, Scott is the lead anchor for any breaking news each weekend. Jon Scott longtime co-anchored '' Happening No ...

– television journalist * John F. Shafroth –

Colorado Colorado is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States. It is one of the Mountain states, sharing the Four Corners region with Arizona, New Mexico, and Utah. It is also bordered by Wyoming to the north, Nebraska to the northeast, Kansas ...

politician *

Clay Shirky Clay Shirky (born 1964) is an American pundit, writer, and consultant on the social and economic effects of Internet technologies and journalism. In 2017 he was appointed Vice Provost of Educational Technologies of New York University (NYU), aft ...

– writer * Apollo M. O. Smith – aviation executive *

William Smith William, Willie, Will, Bill, or Billy Smith may refer to: Academics * William Smith (Master of Clare College, Cambridge) (1556–1615), English academic * William Smith (antiquary) (c. 1653–1735), English antiquary and historian of University C ...

– actor * William J. Stone – 28th

governor of Missouri A governor is an politician, administrative leader and head of a polity or Region#Political regions, political region, in some cases, such as governor-general, governors-general, as the head of a state's official representative. Depending on the ...

T–Z

* Blake Tekotte – baseball player *

Malcolm Thomas Malcolm Thomas may refer to: * Malcolm Thomas (basketball, born 1988), American professional basketball player * Malcolm Thomas (basketball, born 1963), American college basketball player * Malcolm Thomas (rugby union) (1929–2012), Welsh rugby pla ...

– basketball player *

Nischelle Turner Nischelle Renee Turner is the co-host of ''Entertainment Tonight'' (2014–present) and '' Secret Celebrity Renovation'' (2021–present). Previously she was former entertainment correspondent for HLN's ''Showbiz Tonight'' and CNN and an entertai ...

– television personality * Zbylut Twardowski –

nephrologist Nephrology is a specialty for both adult internal medicine and pediatric medicine that concerns the study of the kidneys, specifically normal kidney function (renal physiology) and kidney disease (renal pathophysiology), the preservation of kid ...

Charlie Van Dyke Charlie may refer to: Film and television * ''Charlie'' (2015 Malayalam film), an Indian Malayalam-language film * ''Charlie'' (2015 Kannada film), an Indian Kannada-language film * ''Charlie'' (TV series), a 2015 political drama series based ...

– radio personality *

Andrew VanWyngarden Andrew Wells VanWyngarden (born February 1, 1983) is an American musician. He is the lead vocalist, guitar player and songwriter for the band MGMT, praised for (according to ''Interview Magazine'') "an uncanny knack for producing pop music that s ...

– musician *

James "Bud" Walton James Lawrence "Bud" Walton (December 20, 1921 – March 21, 1995) was the brother of Sam Walton and a Walmart businessman. Biography Early life Walton was born to Thomas Gibson Walton and Nancy "Nannie" Lee Lawrence Walton on December 20, 1 ...

– co-founder,

Wal-Mart Walmart Inc. (; formerly Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.) is an American multinational retail corporation that operates a chain of hypermarkets (also called supercenters), discount department stores, and grocery stores in the United States and 23 other ...

Sam Walton Samuel Moore Walton (March 29, 1918 – April 5, 1992) was an American business magnate best known for Co-founding the retailers Walmart and Sam's Club, which he started in Rogers, Arkansas, and Midwest City, Oklahoma, in 1962 and 1983 res ...

– co-founder,

Edwin Moss Watson Edwin Moss Watson (1867–1937) was a newspaper editor and publisher in Columbia, Missouri. Biography He was born in Millersburg, a small town in Callaway County, Missouri, on November 29, 1867, the first son and second child of six of Dr. Berr ...

– editor; publisher *

Whitney Wegman-Wood Whitney Elaine Wegman-Wood is an American actress, screenwriter and film producer who wrote, produced and starred in the film ''The Last Butterflies'' (2023), and appeared in the films ''Kung Fu Ghost'' (2022), Carbon (2019 film), ''Carbon'' (20 ...

– actress *

Norbert Wiener Norbert Wiener (November 26, 1894 – March 18, 1964) was an American computer scientist, mathematician, and philosopher. He became a professor of mathematics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology ( MIT). A child prodigy, Wiener late ...

– mathematician *

Lisa Wilcox Lisa Elizabeth Wilcox is an American actress, and former model and designer. She is best known for her role as Alice Johnson in the ''A Nightmare on Elm Street'' sequels '' 4'' (1988) and '' 5'' (1989)—both box office successes. In 2023, she ...

– actress * Roger B. Wilson – 52nd

References

{{Reflist

Columbia, Missouri Columbia is a city in Missouri, United States. It was founded in 1821 as the county seat of Boone County, Missouri, Boone County and had a population of 126,254 as recorded in the 2020 United States census, making it the List of cities in Misso ...

Columbia People from

Attending college in Columbia

A–D

E–L

M–S

T–Z

See also

References