Hometown Headliners
Material for these vignettes was gathered from various sources including Wikipedia, Baseball Reference, Princeton, IMDB, Poison: Official Website, SRU Athletics, Oberg Industries, the New York Times and the University of Michigan.
June 26, 1952 — Jan. 23, 2020Michele Marlene McDonald-Boeke became the first woman from Pennsylvania to win Miss USA in 1971, and was crowned Miss Pennsylvania in 1971 as a high school senior.She was born in Butler County in 1952 and graduated from Knoch High School in 1971.She placed in the top-12 at Miss Universe 1971.In 2015, McDonald-Boeke and her husband relocated to Butler County in Sarver, where they remained until her death earlier this year.
Feb. 19, 1948 — March 20, 1995John William Minton, better known by his ring name, Big John Studd, was a professional wrestler born in Butler.Minton wrestled in several minor circuits starting in 1972 before joining the World Wrestling Federation (WWF) in 1982.In the WWF, Minton gained notoriety for feuding with the wrestler Andre the Giant. During his time with the WWF, Minton at times held the WWF World Tag Team Championship and won the 1989 Royal Rumble. He retired in 1986, but briefly returned to the ring from 1988-1989.He died from liver cancer and Hodgkin's disease at age 47 in 1995.He was posthumously inducted into the WCW Hall of Fame in 1995 and the WWE Hall of Fame in 2004. He is buried at Saxonburg Memorial Church Cemetery in Saxonburg.
