Kou Voravong
Kou Voravong grew up in Savannakhet and pursued a primary education there. He obtained the « certificat d'études primaires complémentaire indochinois » - Certificate of Indochinese Additional Primary Studies - (CEPCI) in 1930, went afterward to Vientiane and began his first-secondary-school year at the Collège Auguste Pavie. But because of a conflict which opposed him to French Colonial administration, his adopted father was sentenced to prison that same year. As reaction to this situation, Kou Voravong left school and returned to Savannakhet. As an out-of-school teenager, he practiced sports, especially soccer.
Kuang (surname)
Hiram Fong* (鄺友良), native of Taishan county, Canton, was a 20th-century American politician. A true Horatio Alger legend, Fong was born into an impoverished family in Kalihi, Hawai'i on 1 Oct 1907, as Yau Leong Fong. As a youth, Fong attended public schools, and held a variety of jobs to support his family, by selling beans and newspapers, shining shoes, and caddying golf for a quarter for nine holes. He later attended the University of Hawai'i, where he was the editor for the Ka Leo and Ka Palapala, the yearbook, and was a ROTC cadet, which paid 30 cents a day, "that paid for my lunch", recounted Fong. In 1930, Fong graduated with honors from UH in three years and attended Harvard Law School in 1932, later working as a deputy city attorney in Honolulu from 1935 to 1938. In 1938, Fong won election to the Territorial House of Representatives at the age of 31 and was chosen the House Speaker. His service in the Territorial House halted with the start of World War II in 1942 however, when he was called into action, serving as the judge advocate with the 7th Fighter Command of the Seventh Air Force, earning the rank of major and later retiring as a colonel in the U.S. Air Force Reserve. After his World War II service, Fong returned to his Territorial Legislature seat, finishing his term as the Vice President of the Territorial Constitutional Convention in 1950. In 1959, after a successful build-up of one of Hawai'i largest insurance financial empires, he ran for one of the two new US Senate seats for the state, becoming the only Republican to ever represent Hawai'i in the Senate, and the only Asian American to serve in the United States. Fong held the seat until 2 Jan 1977, when he retired from politics as the ranking Republican on six committees from agriculture to retirement. He returned to his finance empire in 1976, serving as chairman of Finance Enterprises, Ltd. He died due to kidney failure on 18 August 2004 and is interred in Nuuanu Memorial Park and Mortuary.