• Poet, philosopher, and artist, was born in Lebanon, a land that has produced many prophets. The millions of Arabic-speaking people familiar with his writings in that language consider him the genius of his age. But he was a man whose fame and influence spread far beyond the Near East. His poetry has been translated into more than twenty languages. His drawings and paintings have been exhibited in the great capitals of the world and compared by Auguste Rodin to the work of William Blake. In the United States, which he made his home during the last twenty years of his life, he began to write in English. The Prophet and his other books of poetry, illustrated with his mystical drawings, are known and loved by innemerable Americans who find in them an expression of the deepest impulses of man's heart and mind.

Books by Kahlil Gibran

• The Madman, The Prophet, The Forerunner, Sand and Foam, Jesus The Son of Man, The Earth Gods, The Wanderer, The Garden of The Prophet, Prose Poems, Nymphs of The Valley, Spirits Rebellious, A Tear And a Smile.

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Habib, Phillip Charles  United States Ambassador

• Philip Charles Habib (1920-1992) was born in Brooklyn, New York, in 1920, of Lebanese descent.

  Graduated from the University of Idaho in 1942, and the University of California at Berkeley, where he earned a Ph.D., in 1952. Between the two degrees, he served in the army from 1942 to 1946, rising to the rank of captain.

  A career foreign service officer, Ambassador Habib joined the Foreign Service in 1949, serving in American embassies in Ottawa, New Zealand, South Korea, and Saigon, and in State Department posts before being named to the American delegation to the Vietnam peace talks in 1968. Habib took part in negotiations that led to the Paris peace accords with North Vietnam and the CAMP DAVID ACCORDS, and was ambassador to South Korea (1971-74).

  In the spring on 1981 Ambassador Habib was recalled from his retirement by President Reagan and appointed Special Envoy to the Middle East. In a tour de force of shuttle diplomacy, he averted the outbreak of war in that troubled region and negotiated a cease-fire in Lebanon (1982); also to the Philippines (1986), where he helped persuade Ferdinand MARCOS to step down; and to Central America (1986-87).

  His masterful diplomacy in defusing the crisis won him international acclaim as America's preeminent professional diplomat.

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  Ieyoub, Richard P.   Attorney General for the State of Louisiana

• Richard Ieyoub has been recognized by numerous political, civic and professional organizations and institutions for his work on improving the lives of the citizens of Louisiana. Among his many honors are: D.A.R.E. Award and NCADD (National Council Against Drinking and Driving), Legislative Leadership Award, Distinguished Alumnus Award by McNeese State University, Who's Who in the South and Southwest and Who's Who in America.

  First elected as attorney general in November 1991 with the highest vote total any candidate has ever received in Louisiana - more than 1.1 million. He was sworn into office on January 13, 1992, making him Louisiana's 40th attorney general.

  Richard P. Ieyoub was born August 11, 1944, in Lake Charles, Louisiana, and was educated in both the parochial and public schools of Lake Charles. He received his B.A. degree in History from McNeese State University in 1968 and his Juris Doctorate from Louisiana State University in 1972. After graduating from law school, Mr. Ieyoub served for three years as Special Prosecutor in the Criminal Division of the Louisiana Attorney General's Office. He then returned to Lake Charles and entered the private practice of law. He was elected District Attorney of Calcasieu Parish in September, 1984, and took office on January 1, 1985. He was re-elected to this office without opposition in July, 1990.

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Irani, Ray R   Chief Executive Officer, Occidental Petroleum

• The 62 year old CEO was born in Lebanon, and is among Corporate America's Most Powerful People. He graduated from American University of Beirut, (BS '53) and USC, (PhD '57).

  Irani ranked 6 among the other 47 executives in the ENERGY Industry and 98 among the 800 other executives in Forbes Magazine survey. His annual compensation package includes $ 1,900,000 in salary , $ 872,000 in bonus. He holds some $ 18,900,000 in stock.

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Issa, Darrell   Inc. Magazine's Entrepreneur of the Year Award - 1994

• Darrell Issa is one of America's most successful and innovative entrepreneurs. He didn't start out that way - he made it happen. The grandson of Lebanese immigrants, 44-year-old Darrell Issa was born into a working class family in Cleveland, Ohio. Darrell's father worked two jobs to provide for Darrell and his five brothers and sisters.

  Darrell Issa enlisted in the Army at age 17 and rose through the ranks to become an officer. Issa was a bomb disposal expert in the Army.

  After college and military service, Issa took his life savings of $7,000, and a lot of new ideas, and started an electronics business. 15 years later, his business is a $70 million a year company that became a world-class leader... based on a lot of the technology Issa invented.

  Darrell and Kathy moved the growing company from Ohio to California in 1985. Today, their company, Directed Electronics, Inc,is the world's leading manufacturer of consumer auto security systems. Based in San Diego County, DEI has grown to almost 150 employees.

  They have one son, William, who attends a public high school in Vista, California.

  Issa serves as Vice-Chairman of the Consumer Electronics Manufacturing Association and a member of the Board of Governors ofthe Electronics Industry Association. Darrell Issa received Inc. Magazine's Entrepreneur of the Year Award in 1994.

  Republican businessman Darrell Issa, narrowly lost to state Treasurer Matt Fong, whose mother had been secretary of state. He lent his campaign $10 million and outspent Mr. Fong, 4 to 1.

  Sometimes people mispronounce his name, but once you get to know Darrell Issa, you discover this is a life with more great chapters yet to be written.

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  Jabara, James   United States War Hero

• In 1951 twenty-seven-year-old Capt. James 'Jimmy' Jabara won a Distinguished Service Cross, the nation's second highest decoration, on May 20, but he was to add a silver star and oak leaf cluster to that for repeat performances.

  Veteran of over 100 European missions flown in a P-51 before he was twenty, he had a very hot start in Korea when in weeks he downed four MiGs, only one short of the total necessary to become an 'ace'.

  Jabara learned about hard work at his father's grocery store beginning at age eight. He learned in childhood too that children of Lebanese immigrants had to prove themselves unequivocably (or at least thought they did). He excelled as a boy in the discipline of earning Boy Scout badges, and in fact was able to enter officer's school for flyers at seventeen without a college degree only because he had achieved the rank of Eagle Scout.

  Jabara and his father were on local and national radio and television, and Wichita mounted for her returning son one of the best-attended parades in the city's history. The Lebanese-American hero was even sent on a good-will tour of his father's homeland and gave s speech in the little town of Merjayoun in Judeiat where John Jabara was born.

  On November 17, 1966 the Jabara family, James, Nina, James Jr., Carol Anne, Jeanne and Cathy, was driving on Florida's Sunshine State Parkway near Delray Beach on the way to a new home in South Carolina where wife and children would wait out Jimmy's planned combat tour of Viet Nam. Jabara was by then the youngest Colonel in the Air Force, was widely rumored to be on the brink of promotion to General. Carol Anne, sixteen years old, was driving a Volkswagen with her father as a passenger, while behind came Nina and the other children. Going through a construction zone, Carol Anne lost control of the car and it rolled several times. James Jabara was pronounced dead on arrival at the Delray hospital and Carol died tow days later. The two were buried togehter in a single grave at Arlington National Cemetery.

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Jacobs, Joseph   Jacobs Engineering Group - California

• Over dinner at his Pasadena, Calif. home one evening in 1971, construction engineering magnate Joseph Jacobs and his wife, Violet, talked seriously to their three daughters, then in their early 20s. "Because we love you very much, we have decided that we are not going to leave you a lot of money," the self-made centimillionaire told the three young women. He would leave the bulk of his estate to charities. He then gave the three of them $1 million worth of stock each in his company, Jacobs Engineering Group. Though that stock has since greatly appreciated, it represents only a small portion of his wealth.

  Jacobs, now 80, the son of poor Lebanese immigrants, has not changed his mind. "One of the worst things I could do," he says, "is indulge them to the point where they don't have the opportunity to make their own failures and successes that they can say are theirs and not their parents'."

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  Jamail, Joseph Dahr Jr. Trial Lawyer

• Listed among the "Forbes Four Hundred" since 1989 with an estimated worth of $825 million, Jamail is trial lawyer scaring corporate America into big settlements. More than $100 million in settlements forecast from multiple suits in 1998. His standard take: one-third. His son Randall owns Houston-based Justice Records.

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