Seger Pillot Ellis (1904-1995)

    Ellis was born on July 4, 1904, in Houston, the son of a prominent banker who hoped that Seger would join him in that business when he came of age. Instead, Kelley became interested in playing piano from watching Houston pianists Peck Kelley, Charlie Dixon, and Jack Sharpe, but he had no formal training in the instrument. Following high school, in 1921 he began playing solo piano for an hour and a half each week on local radio station - what was later called KPRC. In 1925 he auditioned for Victor Records in Houston and was brought in to perform as a member of the Lloyd Finlay Orchestra on field recordings. Impressed by Ellis’s playing, Victor representatives invited him to their studio in Camden, New Jersey, to record more songs using a new invention, the electric microphone. Two of his compositions, Prairie Blues and Sentimental Blues, became hits. His first royalties from Victor for Prairie Blues totaled $3,500. After the session Ellis returned to Houston and resumed work in vaudeville and radio. He also began singing along to his piano playing, and quickly became one of the most popular keyboard artists during the 1920s. He also had the distinction of helping introduce Victor Talking Machine Company’s innovative Orthophonic Victrola. He toured England in 1928 and headlined at Café de Paris in London. During the late 1920s he recorded for the Columbia and OKeh labels and was the third ranked recording artist in record sales in the United States. His recordings included legendary jazz accompanists such as Tommy Dorsey, Jimmy Dorsey, Joe Venuti, Pee Wee Russell, and Louis Armstrong.  In 1930 he had a nightly national radio program on WLW, Cincinnati. He discovered the Mills Brothers there and became the group’s manager. During the 1930s he also appeared with the Paul Whiteman orchestra.

    In 1936 he sang in the film One Rainy Afternoon. By that same year he had organized his band, the Choir of Brass, which featured four trumpets and four trombones. His first wife, vocalist Irene Taylor, who had performed with the Paul Whiteman outfit, eventually performed as vocalist with the Choir of Brass. He played at large hotels in New York that had airtime. In 1941 the group disbanded, and Ellis moved back to Texas. In 1942 he joined the United States Army Air Corps. During the 1940s and 1950s he continued to find success with his songwriting. Some of his most popular pieces included No Baby, Nobody But You, Shivery Stomp, Gene’s Boogie recorded by Gene Krupa, You Be You (But Let Me Be Me), and the standard You’re All I Want For Christmas recorded by Bing Crosby. He also wrote Oilers - the official song of the Houston Oilers professional football team. Ellis lived out his life in Houston and went into the nightclub business for several years. He died in Houston on September 29, 1995, at the age of ninety-one and was buried in that city in Hollywood Cemetery. He was survived by his wife Pamela and a stepson. Source

Everglade Meadow
Hollywood Cemetery
Houston

COORDINATES

29° 47.426, -095° 21.986

Paul Prichard Haney (1928-2009)

    Paul Haney was born in Akron, Ohio in 1928. He put himself through Kent State University by working nights for the Associated Press, earning a Bachelor of Arts degree in Journalism in 1945. After working for newspapers in Erie, Pennsylvania and Memphis, Tennessee, he joined the staff at the Washington, D.C. Evening Star newspaper in 1954. Three months after the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) was formed in 1958, Haney joined the organization as an information officer, and from 1960 to 1962, served as NASA's first News Director. In that position, he managed the Cape Canaveral and Project Mercury information programs. His work in the Mercury program set the standard for all subsequent NASA information efforts. From 1962 to 1963, Paul Haney was the Public Affairs Officer for the Office of Manned Space Flight. 

    In September 1963, he moved to Houston, Texas, and as Public Affairs Officer for the Manned Spaceflight Center (now the Johnson Space Center), directed the information flowing out of the Gemini and Apollo manned spaceflight programs. In this position he became well known as the "Voice of NASA's Mission Control," and the "Voice of Apollo." He also established the first NASA open-door museum at the Johnson Space Center (formally known as the Manned Spacecraft Center) in Houston. Paul Haney served with distinction throughout the Gemini program and the early phases of the Apollo program. He retired from NASA on April 25, 1969, after the successful Apollo 9 mission. Paul Haney passed away on May 28, 2009, in Alamogordo, New Mexico.

Lakeview Mausoleum

Forest Park East Cemetery
Webster

COORDINATES

29° 30.802, -095° 07.397

Glenn Corbett (1933-1993)

    An American lead and supporting actor, the ruggedly handsome Corbett was born Glenn Edwin Rothenburg on August 17, 1933, the son of a garage mechanic. After serving time in the United States Navy as a Seabee, he met his wife Judy at Occidental College, and with her encouragement, began acting in campus theater plays. He was seen by a talent scout and was signed to a contract with Columbia Pictures. His film debut was in The Crimson Kimono (1959); it was followed with supporting roles in The Mountain Road (1960), Man on a String (1960) and Homicidal (1961). In 1963, Corbett replaced George Maharis on the wildly popular CBS television series Route 66. Corbett, playing Lincoln Case, co-starred with Martin Milner during part of the third season and the fourth, and final, season of the series (1963-1964).

    His other notable television roles in the early-to late-1960s were as Wes Macauley on It's a Man's World (1962-1963) and an episode of Gunsmoke in which a man gets a reputation as a gunman when he's found with four dead outlaws at his feet. He is probably best remembered by science fiction fans for his guest starring role in the second season Star Trek episode Metamorphosis (1967) as Zefram Cochrane, the inventor of warp drive. He returned to movies in the 1970s, and starred with John Wayne in the films Chisum (1970), and Big Jake (1971). Later in the 1970s he had the lead role in Nashville Girl (1976) and in Universal's war epic Midway (1976). In 1977, he joined the cast of the NBC daytime soap opera, The Doctors, and stayed with the show until 1981 when he was cast in the long-running television series Dallas. After his character was written off the show in 1988, he stayed with the Lorimar Television production company for three more years as its dialogue director. In January 1993, Glenn Corbett died of lung cancer at the Veterans Affairs hospital in San Antonio, Texas, at the age of 59 and was buried in the veterans' cemetery there.

Section Q
Fort Sam Houston National Cemetery
San Antonio

COORDINATES

29° 28.564, -098° 25.806

John Plunkett (1808-1886)

    John Plunkett was born in Belfast, Ireland in 1808, the son of John and Elizabeth (Keenan) Plunkett. His parents, because of financial reverses, emigrated to the United States in 1830 with their children and located near Andover, Massachusetts. His father only lived a short time after reaching America, dying at Baltimore on his return home from a visit to a brother in the South. In the year 1834, Plunkett came to Texas and settled at Matagorda where he engaged in merchandising and later in various other enterprises. At the onset of the Texas Revolution, he enlisted on February 23, 1836 with Robert J. Calder's Company for a term of three months, during which time he fought in the Battle of San Jacinto. Upon his discharge on May 24, he re-enlisted in Captain Thomas Stewart's Company, Matagorda Volunteers for an unknown period, after which he returned home to his businesses. Plunkett died some fifty years later at his home in Matagorda, October 3, 1886, unmarried and childless, leaving his estate to his two sisters.

Section D
Matagorda Cemetery
Matagorda

COORDINATES

28° 42.008, -095° 57.327