An HP Dad, Cary is a Grammy-Nominated Songwriter, Performer & Producer. His songs and co-writes have been streamed over 40 Million times and he's had record & publishing deals with Universal, Capitol and Warner Brothers.

He’s toured the world and shared stages with John Mayer, Dave Matthews Band and many others. He has appeared on Conan O'Brien, countless other national and local TV shows and has written songs with artists as diverse as Katy Perry & Chris Tomlin.

Cary & Jack O’Neill founded the band Jackopierce as SMU theater majors. After spending 5 years relentlessly recording & releasing music and touring the country they were signed to major label A&M Records. For 36 years now, Jackopierce has toured the world in 48 states, 10 countries, on 3 continents and they’ve sold about 500,000 albums. They play about 50 shows per year and will be at the Granada in Dallas Friday, May 10. He lives in Dallas with his HP grad wife, Cara, and three HP boys: Jordan ‘19, Jaron ‘26, and Elijah ‘28.

Kael Alford is a photographer, journalist, writer and educator. Her photography explores political violence, environmental justice and the tenuous personal relationship to others. As a journalist, she photographed the violent dissolution of Yugoslavia from 1996-2002 and the impact of the U.S. led invasion Iraqi civilians from 2004-2011. She spent seven years photographing Native American communities in coastal Louisiana, building an estranged family album of her maternal grandmother’s lineage. More recently she has been developing photography-based projects that bring local, individual stories of community members to public spaces. Alford has published two photography books: "Bottom of da Boot: Louisiana's Disappearing Coast" (2012) and "Unembedded: Four Independent Journalists on the War in Iraq (2005). She is based in Denton, Texas.

BFA from Southern Methodist University. Award winning Editorial Cartoonist for many major newspapers. Cartoons have been syndicated across the world. Have illustrated 15 books, both children and adult. Art Teacher for 10 years. Avid painter with works in galleries all over the United States. Design work for Rock posters, street banners and many other projects.

Karl Wimer is an award-winning cartoonist and illustrator, published in books, magazines, and newspapers across five continents. Karl’s been a syndicated cartoonist for WoodyPaige.com, Mile High Sports Magazine, Denver Business Journal, and Central European Business Weekly.

An American Association of Editorial Cartoonists member, Karl’s cartoons have won multiple 1st Place Awards (Society of Professional Journalists, Colorado Press Association, and others). His work appears annually in the Best US Editorial Cartoons of the Year, in USAToday, NPR, Fox News, and in economics textbooks.

His background (BA History/Yale, MBA/Kellogg, Grad Degree/London School Economics), business experience (28 years as a successful marketing executive), sports bonafide (2-sport college athlete: football, All-America in lacrosse, successful coach at many levels), and international interest (several years living and working in places as varied as Prague and Bangkok), all find their way into his art.

Ben Montgomery is author of the New York Times-bestselling 'Grandma Gatewood's Walk,' 'The Leper Spy,' 'The Man Who Walked Backward,' and 'A Shot in the Moonlight." He spent most of his 20 year newspaper career as an enterprise reporter for the Tampa Bay Times. He founded the narrative journalism website Gangrey.com and helped launch the Auburn Chautauqua, a Southern writers collective. He has taught journalism at the University of Montana and the University of South Florida.

In 2010, he was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in local reporting and won the Dart Award and Casey Medal for a series called "For Their Own Good," about abuse at Florida's oldest reform school.

Montgomery grew up in Oklahoma and studied journalism at Arkansas Tech University. He worked for the Courier in Russellville, Ark., the Standard-Times in San Angelo, Texas, the Times Herald-Record in New York's Hudson River Valley and the Tampa Tribune before joining the Times in 2006. He lives in Tampa.

Greg Brownderville is the author of three books of poetry, the editor-in-chief of Southwest Review, the creator of an online narrative series called Fire Bones, and the lead singer and songwriter for indie rock duo Beekeeper Spaceman. He lives in Dallas and serves as Professor of English at SMU.

Michael J. Mooney is the author of the New York Times bestseller, The Life and Legend of Chris Kyle. He is a regular contributor to The Atlantic, GQ, ESPN the Magazine, Texas Monthly, and Politico. His stories have appeared in multiple editions of The Best American Crime Reporting and The Best American Sports Writing. His GQ story about a 21-year-old man who convinced an entire Texas town that he was a 15-year-old orphan, and then became the star of the high school basketball team, is currently in pre-production. Mooney’s Atlantic feature about a married mother who ran a prison dog program, fell in love with a convicted murderer, and then helped him escape, was recently optioned by Warner Bros. Television Studios. He’s been interviewed as a subject-matter expert on Dateline NBC, and on a variety of shows on CNN, MSNBC, C-SPAN, and Investigative Discovery. He also writes the Axios Dallas daily newsletter. Mooney lives in Dallas with his wife, Tara.