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.
Prežihov Voranc
Prežihov Voranc was born as Lovro Kuhar in Podgora near Kotlje, a Slovene-speaking village in Carinthia, then part of Austria-Hungary. He was the son of tenant farmers who later acquired their own land. His younger brother, Alojzij Kuhar, became a renowned liberal conservative politician and historian. His pen name is a typical folk formulation derived from the oeconym of the farm the family lived on (the Prežih farm) plus the Carninthian dialect form of the name "Lovrenc" (or "Lovro"); thus, "Prežihov Voranc" literally means 'Lovro from the Prežih farm'.