Columbia Encyclopedia

(Encyclopedia) Rice, Jerry Lee, 1962–, American football player, b. Crawford, Miss. Winning national attention while at the otherwise obscure Mississippi Valley State College, Itta Bena, Miss., Rice subsequently p...

(Encyclopedia) Lewis, Jerry Lee, 1935–2022, American singer and composer, b. Ferriday, La. Combining country music elements with an energetic performance style, he w...

(Encyclopedia) Adler, Jerry: see under Adler, Larry. ...

(Encyclopedia) rice, cereal grain (Oryza sativa) of the grass family (Graminae), probably native to the deltas of the great Asian rivers—the Ganges, the Chang (Yangtze), and the Tigris and Euphrates. The plant is ...

(Encyclopedia) Lewis, Jerry, 1926–2017, extremely popular and influential American comedian, b. Newark, N.J. as Jerome Levitch. The son of vaudevillians, he entered show business early and entertained in the “bo...

(Encyclopedia) Buss, Jerry (Gerald Hatten Buss), 1933–2013, American businessman and basketball executive, b. Salt Lake City. He worked in the aerospace industry unt...

(Encyclopedia) Falwell, Jerry Lamon fôlˈwĕl, –wəl [key], 1933–2007, American fundamentalist Baptist pastor, b. Lynchburg, Va. A popular preacher and founder of the Thomas Road Baptist Church in Lynchburg, Fa...

(Encyclopedia) West, Jerry (Jerome Alan West), 1938–, American basketball player, b. Cheylan, W.Va. One of the game's great shooting guards, he led West Virginia Univ. to the 1959 National Collegiate Athletic Asso...

(Encyclopedia) Brown, Jerry (Edmund Gerald Brown, Jr.), 1938–, American political leader, b. San Francisco. The son of Edmund Gerald (Pat) Brown (1905–96), governor of California (1959–67), Brown abandoned ear...

(Encyclopedia) Rice University, at Houston, Tex.; coeducational; chartered 1891 as Rice Institute through a bequest of William Marsh Rice, opened 1912, renamed 1960. It follows the residential college system and has...