Progress on the Proper Noun front

As someone who has spent the past decade as a professional student and, later, an academic, I do my fair share of heavy reading (and, sometimes, thinking). To keep things fresh, I also do my fair share of super-market aisle novel reading, and over the years my selections in this vein have become more and more awesome. For example, I just finished my crime thriller novel about Civil War-era vampires - I swear this is true - and while the first 80% of the book did the job, the ending was so swift and unsatisfying that I decided to postpone my next book about vampires (this one about a group of vampires that band together to defeat the 3rd Reich ... seriously) with a medical thriller about a crazy president. I started in on that one and, as is usually the case, my mind started wandering to other things, like the time I promised my loyal readership to start a Proper Noun of the Week column.

I've done pretty well with my other regular additions (even if they don't always come on the right day), and for now I think I have a decent idea for how to start this off without it taking up too much time and without me coming off (too much) to the subjects I'll write about as worthy of a restraining order. I have a short list of folks I want to start with, and since I only need 50-odd subjects a year, this list never needs to be very long.

However, I am still barely a 2-year resident in our fine city and while I feel I've made some great in-roads in some neighborhoods, there are many more where I don't know a thing about. So, I turn to you, dear reader. What interesting folks should I contact to do a brief post about? I'm mostly gonna focus on artists, musicians, business owners, and civic leaders, but if you have ideas about folks outside those categories, send them along. Feel free to post suggestions in the comments or send me an email at clevelandbachelor@gmail.com.

Of course, there should all be NEO residents, though if you have an idea for why a non-resident (perhaps a former Clevelander?) should get some attention, I'm always amenable to persuasion.

Thanks for your help!