Profiles and Perspectives: 2000-2001 Series

Jiaan Powers, a native Texan, is an expert storyteller specializing in multi-cultural folk tales, myths and legends, tall tales, literary tales, ghost tales and snippets from down home.

Burns Hargis and Mike Turpen are political analysts and co-hosts of Flashpoint, a weekly Sunday morning talk show on KFOR Television in Oklahoma City. Despite vocal differences on most matters, both men are former gubernatorial candidates — Hargis as a Republican in 1990, and Turpen running on the Democratic ticket in 1986.
 

David Gold and Charles Edwards wait with great anticipation for spring to begin across the American Great Plains. For these two adventurers, late spring means tornadoes, and tornadoes become their proverbial pots of gold at the ends of the rainbows. Gold, based in Houston, Texas, operates Silver Lining Tours. Edwards, a Norman resident, runs Cloud Nine Tours. Both companies specialize in guided storm chasing adventures for those willing to devote two weeks and a couple of thousand dollars to the pursuit of nature in its unbridled fury.

Bob Stoops is the head coach for Oklahoma University’s Sooner Football Team. In a presentation entitled "Oklahoma Football Team Philosophies," he shared the strategies that let the Sooners to a 13-0 record and a national championship.

Dr. Bruce Roe is a research professor of chemistry and biochemistry at the University of Oklahoma. He was one of the key players in the landmark effort of mapping the human genome, which, in essence, is the blueprint for human life. Roe's research centers on automated methods for DNA sequence analysis and, as Director of the University of Oklahoma's Advanced Center for Genome Technology (ACGT), he leads a team of 60 researchers. His team focused its research on human chromosome number 22 and other regions of interest in the mouse genome. The team is now concentrating its efforts on mapping complete genomes of various bacterial organisms that directly affect human health.