Famous Texans and their Hometowns Multiple Choice Quiz | People

Quiz Answer Key and Fun Facts

1. Famed screenwriter and Pulitzer Prize winning novelist Larry McMurtry lovingly dedicated his 1966 novel, "The Last Picture Show", to his hometown. He also opened a bookstore there in 1988. What is his hometown?

Answer: Archer City, Texas

McMurtry was born in Wichita Falls, but grew up on a ranch near Archer City. The Last Picture Show is set in a fictional West Texas town named Thalia, but McMurtry based the book on his years in Archer City. He received his B.A. from North Texas State University in Denton and an M.A. from Rice University in Houston. His first "Booked Up" book store was opened in Georgetown, DC in 1970.

2. Where did Rock and Roll legend Roy Orbison form his first band when he was only thirteen years old?

Answer: Wink, Texas

Orbison was born in Vernon, Texas, but his family moved to Wink when he was a young boy. He formed a country/western band, "The Wink Westerners," eventually to be renamed "The Teen Kings." They performed at West Texas school dances, on The Saturday Jamboree show at KERB radio, Kermit, Texas, and on local TV shows in Odessa.

He would later begin writing and performing Rock and Roll, become a contemporary of Johnny Cash, and record with famed Sun Records and producer Sam Phillips.

3. What was Janis Joplin's hometown?

Answer: Port Arthur, Texas

While a student at Lamar University in Beaumont, Joplin often traveled to Austin to perform, but she was born and raised in Port Arthur. After becoming a rock star, she told interviewer Dick Cavett that she was going back to her 10th high school reunion in Port Arthur because she'd been laughed "out of class, out of town, and out of the state" -- and she was going back!

4. The tombstone of legendary 19th century gunfighter Clay Allison states that "He Never Killed a Man That Did Not Need Killing." Where is he buried?

Answer: Pecos, Texas

Allison had a storied and dangerous career as a western gunfighter before retiring to the relative peace of a rancher's life near Pecos. He died there, at age 37, after falling from his wagon while driving a load of supplies to his ranch.

5. Journalist and former CBS anchorman Dan Rather, the son of a pipeline worker, was born in Wharton, Texas and grew up in Houston. From what Texas college did he graduate?

Answer: Sam Houston State University

Rather grew up in Houston and returned there upon graduation from Sam Houston State in Huntsville. During college he had worked for a radio station in Huntsville and for the AP and UPI wire services. Before joining CBS, he worked at The Houston Chronicle and Houston radio and television stations.

6. What famed Texas journalist, who was raised in Houston, held early career positions with the Houston Chronicle, Dallas Times Herald, Minneapolis Tribune and New York Times?

Answer: Molly Ivins

Ivins was educated at Smith College and Columbia University, but she took her first newspaper job in the complaint department of the Houston Chronicle. Her witty, often irreverent columns appeared in the Texas Observer and were syndicated out of her home newspaper of the Ft. Worth Star Telegram.

She co-authored the book "Shrub," about the younger president George W. Bush, the son (or shrub) of George H.W. Bush. She died at her home in Austin in 2007, after an eight-year battle with breast cancer.

7. What United States President was born and raised in a poor farming community in Texas Hill Country and graduated from what was then known as the Southwest Texas Normal School at San Marcos?

Answer: Lyndon Baines Johnson

LBJ taught school before entering politics. He is responsible for the Great Society legislation of the 1960s which established programs such as Medicare and Medicaid, the Civil Rights Act of 1964, federal subsidies to lower income school districts, and the Higher Education Act of 1965 which provided loans, work study opportunities and grants to students seeking college educations.

In addition to the social, educational, and health care programs he established, he is considered to have escalated the Vietnam War.

8. During the late 19th century, Justice of the Peace Judge Roy Bean considered himself "The Law West of the Pecos." He dispensed justice from his saloon, the "Jersey Lily." Where was it located?

Answer: the Chihuahuan desert

Judge Roy Bean named his saloon along the Mexican border "The Jersey Lily" in honor of British actress and songstress Lily Langtree. She was en route to finally meet the man who had been writing her for years, when Bean died while visiting Del Rio, Texas in 1903. He has been portrayed on film by Walter Brennan, Edgar Buchanan and Paul Newman.

9. Dallas businessman and billionnaire, Ross Perot, is best known as the founder of Electronic Computer Systems and Perot Systems, as well as the independent Reform Party candidate in the 1992 and 1996 Presidential elections. He attended the local community college located in his hometown. What is his hometown?

Answer: Texarkana, Texas

Perot attended Texarkana Junior College, but was later admitted to the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, MD, from which he graduated in 1953.

10. What notable Texas heart surgeon was born and raised in Houston, Texas, was a star athlete, graduated from the University of Texas with a degree in zoology, and attended medical school at the Texas College of Medicine at Galveston?

Answer: Dr. Denton Cooley

Dr. Cooley transferred from the Galveston school to Johns Hopkins in Baltimore where he also did his internship and assisted Dr. Alfred Blalock in developing the "blue baby" congenital heart repair surgery. He returned to Houston to work with Dr. Michael DeBakey at Baylor.

He pioneered innovative technologies and surgical techniques in the fields of artificial heart values, heart transplants, the heart-lung bypass machine, and the removal of aortic aneurysms and pulmonary embolisms. In Houston, he established the Denton A. Cooley Cardiovascular Surgical Foundation, the Texas Heart Institute, and The Heartbeats, the latter being a band comprised of physicians and in which Dr. Cooley plays bass.

Source: Author drushalli

This quiz was reviewed by FunTrivia editor Exit10 before going online.
Any errors found in FunTrivia content are routinely corrected through our feedback system.

Famous Texans and their Hometowns Quiz

This should be interesting even for those who have never been to Texas! It is about notable Texans who made it big and their small town roots.

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