Cowan Center Presents

GUESTS INCLUDE PULITZER PRIZE-WINNING AUTHOR, ACADEMY AWARD-WINNING ACTOR, RENOWNED ENTREPRENEUR

BY BEVERLEY GOLDEN

Kevin Costner

The UT Tyler R. Don Cowan Fine and Performing Arts Center marked its 25th anniversary with a blacktie gala featuring actor, filmmaker and musician Kevin Costner. “An Evening with Kevin Costner” included a talk with the Academy Award-winning actor who shared stories and anecdotes from his more than four-decade career.

Costner is known for such notable films as “Dances with Wolves,” for which he won two Academy Awards, “JFK,” “The Bodyguard” and “Field of Dreams.”

Daymond John

Known to many as a shark on the popular TV series “Shark Tank,” Daymond John spoke Oct. 4, 2022, at the UT Tyler R. Don Cowan Fine and Performing Arts Center. He was the first speaker of the 2022-23 Distinguished Lecture Series.

The award-winning entrepreneur told the audience how he turned a $100,000 mortgage on his mother’s house into a much-celebrated global lifestyle brand with more than $6 billion in product sales worldwide. John is the author of five best-selling books.

Doris Kearns Goodwin

Pulitzer Prize-winning author Doris Kearns Goodwin was the second and final speaker of the 2022-23 UT Tyler R. Don Cowan Distinguished Lecture Series, presented in part by Patrick Willis Strategic Consulting.

Goodwin’s career as a presidential historian and author was inspired when, as a 24-year- old graduate student at Harvard University, she was selected to join the White House Fellows, one of America’s most prestigious programs for leadership and public service, during the Lyndon Baines Johnson administration.