Poor North Dakota. Can I nominate my great-aunt, who lived to be 98 and (if family reports are true) never left Steele County?
Yeah, but I always associate the crooner with NEW YORK to the point that the song echoes in my head (or Las Vegas, NV with the rest of his pack).
Oh, and for Kansas…maybe Kansas? I associate Earp and Holliday with Arizona.
And for Massachussetts…maybe Boston?
Washington State produced *Heart *(though the Wilson sisters were from somewhere else).
New Mexico…Bryan Cranston? 
–G!
Louis L’Amour - writer of dime westerns ?
Lawrence Welk (in a supernova) was apparently born in ND. But I don’t automatically link his name with the state, that’s for sure.
Nebraska: Charles Starkweather.
Interesting choice. I sure don’t think he embodies Nebraska, any more than Albert DeSalvo represents Massachusetts… but Springsteen seemed to think he symbolized the desolate Great Plains.
I didn’t know L’Amour was from North Dakota, but he seems like a VERY good selection. Certainly, the country’s best known writer of Westerns is a good symbol of what outsiders THINK North Dakota is.
I just did a search of people BORN in SD, tho. I’m not sure if he worked from there.
L’Amour spent most of his adult life (and his whole career) in Oklahoma.
I can’t decide between Ray Charles and Martin Luther King.
Well, there ya go then. Still need a ND celeb rep.
Somebody already mentioned Lombardi for WI. Surprisingly nobody has mentioned Henry Winkler.