Drummond, bassist for Better Than Ezra Kevin Griffin, lead singer of Better Than Ezra, songwriter Bill Conti, Academy Award and Emmy-winning composer Jordan Davis, American country pop artist Lauren Daigle, contemporary Christian music artist Dee-1, rapper/lyricist Carl Fontana, jazz trombonist Julie Giroux, composer Grits Gresham, outdoorsman, author, sportsman, co-host of ABC's The American Sportsman (1966–1979) John Thomas Griffith, guitarist in rock band Cowboy Mouth Fatma Ceren Necipoğlu, Turkish harpist Lisette Oropesa, operatic soprano Jonathan Pretus, guitarist in rock band Cowboy Mouth H. Owen Reed, composer Claibe Richardson, composer Chad Shelton, operatic tenor Journalists Brett Blackledge, reporter for The Associated Press in Washington D.C.; while working for The Birmingham News, won the 2007 Pulitzer Prize for investigative reporting Donna Britt, television news anchorwoman Don Lemon, news anchor and journalist, host of CNN Tonight Edwin Newman, NBC-TV newsman and anchor Rex Reed, film critic Poets, novelists, writers Julie Cantrell (B.A. 1995, M.A. 1997), novelist and editor A. Wilson Greene (M.A. 1977), American Civil War historian, museum director, and author Camille Martin, poet and collage artist Dinty W. Moore (MFA 1990), novelist and essayist Nic Pizzolatto, novelist, writer, and creator of HBO series True Detective Lisa Rhoades, poet Rebecca Wells, author of Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood Dede Wilson, poet and writer Government, politics, and activism A Eduardo Aguirre, former United States Ambassador to Spain and Andorra Bret Allain (B.S. agricultural engineering, 1980), current District 21 member of the Louisiana State Senate (R) A. Leonard Allen, late U.S. Representative from Alexandria-based district (D) B Tony Bacala, member of the Louisiana House of Representatives for Ascension Parish; law-enforcement officer Reggie Bagala, member of the Louisiana House of Representatives for the 54th district for four months Larry S. Bankston (bachelor's degree, 1973), lawyer and former state senator from Baton Rouge (D) Guy Bannister, FBI agent; Assistant Superintendent of the New Orleans Police Department, and private investigator; subject of Orleans Parish District Attorney Jim Garrison's JFK assassination investigation Edwards Barham, planter; former state senator from Morehouse Parish (R) Taylor Barras (Class of 1979), accountant and banker; current state representative from Iberia Parish (R) Carl W. Bauer (Class of 1954), lawyer; former member of both houses of the Louisiana State Legislature from St. Mary Parish (D) Lottie Beebe, Republican member since 2012 of the Louisiana Board of Elementary and Secondary Education from Breaux Bridge; school superintendent in St. Martin Parish since 2013, received master's degree from