Also see Kansas Humor, Kansas, Specific Destinations, Travel and Location Humor.

This file has a small sample of notable Kansans from various fields and various times. I would not even try to include everyone as that would be way too long a list.
These people were either born in Kansas or lived here at some point. Many lived in various places in Kansas but I put the city they were born in if I knew it. I didn't put many details but plan to add more eventually.
For a longer lists of notable Kansans see Wikipedia (also interesting is the "fictional persons" list at the bottom of the file) and the Kansas Historical Society's kansapedia (look for the 'people' section of the menu).

Notable Kansans in the Film Industry

• Brandon Adams (1979- ) actor (Topeka)
• Kirstie Alley (1951- ) – actress (Wichita)
• Ed Asner (1929- ) – actor, producer (Kansas City)
• Barbara Babcock (1937- ) – actress (Fort Riley)
• Stephen "Steve" Balderson (1975- ) – director (Manhattan)
• Hugh Beaumont (1909-1982) – actor (Lawrence)
• Annette Bening (1958- ) – actress (Topeka)
• Trai Byers (1983- ) – actor (Kansas City)
• Tamara Feldman (1980- ) – actress (Wichita)
• Dennis Hopper (1936-2010) – actor (Dodge City)
• Don Johnson (1959- ) – actor, director, singer (Wichita)
• Gordon Jump (1932-2003) – actor (Fort Riley)
• Buster Keaton (1895-1966) – comedian (Piqua)
• Emmett Kelly (1898-1979) – circus clown (Sedan)
• Shirley Knight (1937- ) – actress (Goessel)
• Sarah Lancaster (1980- ) – actress (Overland Park)
• Harold Lloyd (1893-1971) – actor and comedian (Burchard)
• Hattie McDaniel (1895-1952) – won an Academy Award for her role in Gone with the Wind (Wichita)
• Cassandra Peterson (1951- ) – actress, singer (Manhattan)
• Zasu Pitts (1894-1963) – actress (Parsons)
• Charles "Buddy" Rogers (1904-1999) – actor and musician (Olathe)
• Milburn Stone (1904-1980) – actor (Burrton)
• Vivian Vance (1909-1970) – actress and singer (Cherryvale)
• Lyle Waggoner (1935- ) – actor, sculptor (Kansas City)
• Emily Wickersham (1984- ) – actress (Kansas City)

Notable Kansas Musicians, Singers, Songwriters, etc.

• Karrin Allyson (1963) – jazz pianist, singer (Great Bend)
• Dawayne Bailey (1954- ) – guitarist and songwriter for Bob Seger and Chicago (Manhattan)
• Karla Burns (1955 - ) – mezzo-soprano and actress (Wichita)
• Harold Eugene "Gene" Clark (1944-1991) – singer-songwriter, founding member of the Byrds (Bonner Springs)
• Dorothy DeLay (1917-2002) – violin instructor at Julliard (Medicine Lodge)
• Phil Ehart (1951- ) – drummer for the rock band Kansas, songwriter (Coffeyville)
• Melissa Etheridge (1961- ) – singer, guitarist, songwriter (Leavenworth)
• Rory Lee Feek (1965- ) – country music singer and songwriter (Atchison)
• Mark Hart (1953- ) – multi-instrumentalist with Supertramp (Fort Scott)
• Brewster Higley (1823-1909) – poet, doctor, wrote Home on the Range (Smith County)
• Dave Hope (1949- ) – bass guitarist with Kansas (Topeka)
• Stan Kenton (1911-1979) – pop and jazz musician (Wichita)
• Jennifer Knapp (1974- ) – singer, songwriter (Chanute)
• Katrina Leskanich (1960 - ) – musician, lead singer on Walking on Sunshine (Topeka)
• Marilyn Maye (1928- ) – jazz singer (Wichita)
• Martina McBride (1966- ) – country singer, songwriter (Sharon)
• Jerrod Niemann (1979- ) – country singer (Liberal)
• Charlie "Bird" Parker (1920-1955) – jazz saxophonist and composer (Kansas City)
• Zasu Pitts (1894-1963) – actress (Parsons)
• Joe Don Rooney (1975- ) – guitarist and vocalist with Rascal Flatts (Baxter Springs)
• Kendall Schmidt (1990- ) – singer, songwriter, actor (Andover)
• Steven Stucky (1949- ) – Pulitzer Prize-winning composer (Hutchinson)
• Clark Tippet (1954–1992) – ballet dancer and choreographer, member of the American Ballet Theater Company in NYC (Parsons)
• Grace VanderWaal (2004- ) – singer, songwriter (Lenexa)
• Joe Walsh (1947- ) – rock guitarist with the Eagles and other bands (Wichita)
• James Wesley aka James Prosser (1970- ) – country music singer (Mound Valley)
• Chely Wright (1970- ) – country singer (Wellsville)

Notable Kansas Writers, Journalists, Commentators, etc.

• Clarence Daniel "C.D." Batchelor (1888-1977) – editorial cartoonist, Pulitzer Prize winner (Salina)
• Gwendolyn Elizabeth Brooks (1917 – 2000) - poet, Pulitzer Prize winner (Topeka)
• Don Coldsmith (1926-2009) – author of Western fiction (Iola)
• Steve Doocy (1956- ) – political commentator, author (Abilene)
• Peggy Hull Deuell (1890-1967) – first accredited woman war correspondent, (Marysville)
• Sam Elliot (1938-2015) – broadcaster (Salina)
• Dorothy Canfield Fisher (1879-1958) – author (Lawrence)
• Jane Grant (1892-1972) – journalist co-founded The New Yorker (Girard)
• Paul Harvey (1918-2009) – news commentator (Salina)
• Langston Hughes (1901-1967) – author, poet (Topeka)
• William Inge (1913-1973) – playwright and novelist (Independence)
• Bill Kurtis (1940- ) – television journalist, producer, narrator (Independence)
• James Lehrer (1934-2020) – journalist, novelist, and playwright (Wichita)
• Bill Martin, Jr. (1916-2004) – children's author, wrote "Chicka Chicka Boom Boom" (Hiawatha)
• Edgar Lee Masters (1868-1950) – poet, biographer, attorney (Garnett)
• Michael McClure (1932-2020) – poet, novelist, playwright, songwriter (Marysville)
• Clementine Paddleford (1898-1967) – food editor, author (Stockdale)
• Sara Paretsky (1947- ) – detective novelist (Lawrence)
• Marci Penner (1956) – author, co-founder of the Kansas Sampler Foundation (Inman)
• Gordon Parks (1912-2006) – photographer, journalist (Fort Scott)
• Richard Rhodes (1937- ) – Pulitzer Prize winning author and historian (Kansas City)
• Damon Runyon (1880-1946) - author, journalist (Manhattan)
• Charles Monroe Sheldon (1857-1946) – minister, author of "In His Steps", he coined the phrase "What Would Jesus Do?" (Topeka)
• William Eugene Smith (1918-1978) - photojournalist (Wichita)
• William Stafford (1914-1993) – poet, educator (Hutchinson)
• Rex Stout (1886-1975) – author, creator of the Nero Wolfe detective series (Wakarusa)
• John Cameron Swayze (1906-1995) - news commentator (grew up in Atchison)
• Mort Walker (1923-2018), cartoonist, creator of various comic strips (El Dorado)
• William Allen White (1868-1944) – journalist, author, politician (Emporia)
• Laura Ingalls Wilder (1867-1957) – author of the Little House series of books (near Independence)

Notable Kansans in Aviation

• Olive Ann Beech (1903-1993), co-founder and president of Beech Aircraft Company (Waverly)
• Walter Beech (1891-1950) - aviation pioneer (Wichita)
• Clyde Cessna (1879-1954) - aviation pioneer (Hawthorne)
• Amelia Earhart (1897-1937) - first woman granted a pilot's license, first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic, disappeared over the Pacific while trying to fly around the world (Atchison)
• Joe Engle (1932- ) – astronaut (Chapman)
• Ronald Evans (1933-1990) – astronaut (St. Francis)
• Steve Hawley (1951- ) – astronaut (Salina)
• Marilyn Hewson (1953 - ) – industrial engineer, CEO of Lockheed Martin (Junction City)
• James Jabara (1923-1966) – the world’s first jet ace pilot, flight instructor, Jabara Airport was named after him (Wichita)
• William Lear (1902-1978) – aviation pioneer (Wichita)
• Glenn L. Martin (1886-1955) – aviation pioneer, founded company that later became Lockheed Martin (Salina)
• William J. Purvis (1838-1914) – Co-Inventor of the predecessor of the helicopter (Goodland)
• Lloyd Stearman (1898-1975) – aviator, aircraft designer, formed Stearman Aircraft that later merged with Boeing (Wellsford)
• Charles A. Wilson (1856-?) – Co-inventor of the predecessor of the helicopter (Goodland)
• Dwane Wallace (1911-1989) – aeronautical engineer, general manager of Cessna Aircraft (Belmont)

Notable Kansas Artists

• Leroy Allen (1951-2007) – watercolorist (Kansas City)
• Grace Bilger (1907-2000) – artist, mostly watercolors (Olathe)
• Blackbear Bosin (1921-1980) – Native American artist (Wichita)
• James Pringle Cook (1947- ) – landscape artist (Topeka)
• John Steuart Curry (1897-1946) – painter (Dunavant)
• Samuel P. Dinsmoor (1843-1932) – sculptor, created the "Garden of Eden" in Lucas, KS (Lucas)
• Aaron Douglas (1899-1979) – artist, illustrator (Topeka)
• Robert Merrell Gage (1892-1981) – sculptor, created the Pioneer Mother Memorial in Washington D.C. and the Police Memorial and Veteran’s Fountain in Kansas City (Topeka)
• William Alexander Griffith (1866-1940) – painter, art teacher (Lawrence)
• C. Bertram Hartman (1882-1960) – oil and watercolor painter (Junction City)
• Evylena Nunn Miller (1888-1966) – landscape artist (Mayfield)
• Frederick Remington (1861-1909) – old west artist, illustrator, scupltor (Peabody)
• Byron Wolfe (1904-1973) – illustrator, painter of the American West (Parsons)

Notable Kansas Politicians

• Henry J. Allen (1868-1950) – U.S. senator, Kansas governor, editor and publisher of the Wichita Beacon newspaper (Wichita)
• Nancy Landon Kassebaum Baker (1932- ) – Kansas senator (Topeka)
• Sam Brownback (1956- ) – attorney, U.S. Representative, U.S. senator, Kansas overnor (Garnett)
• Arthur Capper (1865-1951) – US senator, Kansas governor and newspaper editor (Garnett)
• Frank Carlson (1893-1987) – U.S. senator, U.S. representative, Kansas governor (Cloud County)
• Georgia Neese Clark (1900-1995) – first woman Treasurer of United States (Richland)
• Charles Curtis (1860-1936) – U.S. Senator, the first Native American to serve as U.S. vice president (near Topeka)
• Samuel J. Crawford (1835-1913) – Civil War general, Kansas governor (Garnett)
• Bob Dole (1923- ) – U.S. senator, presidential candidate in 1996 (Russell)
• Dwight David Eisenhower (1890-1969) - 34th U.S. president (grew up in Abilene)
• Marlin Fitzwater (1942- ) – only Press Secretary to be appointed by two different presidents, served in the EPA (Salina)
• Carl Atwood Hatch (1889-1963) – politician and judge (Kirwin)
• Alf Landon (1887-1987) – Kansas Governor, 1936 presidential candidate (Topeka)
• Jerry Moran (1954- ) – U.S. representative and Senator (Plainville)
• Gale Norton (1954- ) – first woman to serve as U.S. Secretary of the Interior (Wichita)
• Susanna Madora Salter (1860-1961) – first woman mayor in the U.S., elected in 1887 (Argonia)
• Rosalie E. Wahl (1924-2014) – first woman justice of the Minnesota Supreme Court (Caney)

Notable Kansas Athletes in Team Sports

• Neil Allen (1958- ) – pro baseball pitcher, coach (Kansas City)
• Ron Baker (1993) – pro basketball player (Hays)
• Matt Besler (1987- ) – pro soccer player (Overland Park)
• George Brett (1953- ) – pro baseball player (Mission Hills)
• Wilt Chamberlain (1936-1999) – pro basketball player, in his entire career he never fouled out (Lawrence)
• Jack Christiansen (1928-1986) – pro football player and coach (Sublette)
• Tony Clark (1972- ) – pro baseball player (Newton)
• Larry Drew (1958- ) – pro basketball player and coach (Kansas City)
• Adrianna Franch (1990- ) – world champion soccer player (Salina)
• Walter Johnson (1887-1946) – pro baseball pitcher (Humboldt)
• Laurie Koehn (1982- ) – pro basketball player (Moundridge)
• Shalee Lehning (1987- ) – pro basketball player, coach (Sublette)
• Danny Manning (1966- ) – pro basketball player, coach (Lawrence)
• James Naismith (1861-1939) – invented basketball (Lawrence)
• Barry Sanders (1968-) – pro football player (Wichita)
• Gale Sayers (1943) – pro football player, athletic director (Wichita)
• Derek "Bubba" Starling (1992- ) – pro baseball player (Gardner)
• Jackie Stiles (1978- ) – pro basketball player, coach (Claflin)
• Lynette Woodard (1959- ) – Olympic gold-medalist in basketball, athletic director (Wichita)

Notable Kansas Athletes in Individual Sports

• Chase Austin (1989) – NASCAR driver (Eudora)
• Thane Baker (1931- ) – Olympic gold medalist, decathlon (Elkhart)
• Chris Barnes (1970- ) – professional bowler (Topeka)
• Judy Bell (1936- ) – golfer, member of World Golf Hall of Fame (Wichita)
• Clint Bowyer (1979- ) – NASCAR driver (Emporia)
• Glenn Cunningham (1909-1988) – runner, Olympic silver medalist (Elkhart)
• Maurice Greene (1974- ) – Olympic track and field athlete (Kansas City)
• Harold Manning (1909-2003) – record breaking long distance runner (Sedgwick)
• Victor Ortiz (1987- ) – pro boxer, actor (Garden City)
• Johnny Rutherford (1938- ) – Indy race car driver (Coffeyville)
• Jim Ryun (1947- ) – Olympic track and field athlete, first high school athlete to run a mile in under four minutes, U.S. representative (Wichita)
• Marilynn Louise Smith (1928- ) – pro golfer and LPGA co-founder (Topeka)
• Matt Stutzman (1982- ) – archer, Paralympics silver medalist (Kansas City)
• Jess Willard (1881-1968) – pro boxer, heavy-weight champion of the world (Pottawatomie County)

Notable Kansans in Medicine

• Henry Knowles Beecher (1904-1976) – anesthesiologist, professor of research in anesthesia at Harvard (Peck)
• Jeff Colyer (1960- ) – plastic surgeon, volunteer surgeon in several combat zones, Kansas governor (Hays)
• Lewis Coriell (1911-2001) – doctor, medical researcher, contributed to the development of the polio vaccine (Lawrence)
• Samuel J. Crumbine (1862-1954) – doctor, public health reformer, discouraged public drinking cups and roller towels, the model for Doc Adams on "Gunsmoke" (Dodge City)
• Arthur Hertzler (1870-1946) – doctor, educator, author, established the Halstead Hospital (Halstead)
• Karl Menninger (1893-1990) – psychiatrist, co-founder of the Menninger Foundation (Topeka)
• Emily Morgan (1878 -1960) – in the Army Reserve Nurse Corps, first public health nurse in Wichita (Leon)
• Andrew Taylor Still (1828-1917) – doctor, founder of the American School of Osteopathy in Missouri (Douglas County)

Notable Kansas Scientists, Inventors, etc.

• Holless Wilbur Allen (1909-1979) – invented the compound bow (Stillwell)
• Charles Angell, Sr. (1882-1927) – invented the one-way disc plow (Plains)
• Robert D. Ballard (1942- ) – archaeologist, discovered the Titanic shipwreck (Wichita)
• George Washington Carver (1864-1943) - humanitarian, botanist, chemist, discovered over 300 products made from the peanut (Minneapolis)
• Jack S. Kilby (1923-2005) – Nobel Prize winner in Physics, co-inventor of the handheld calculator (Great Bend)
• Omar Knedlik (1915-1989) – inventor best known for the invention of the ICEE frozen drink machine (Coffeyville)
• Mark L. Morris, Jr. (1934-2007) – veterinarian, animal nutritionist, developed the Science Diet product line (Topeka)
• John Brooks Slaughter (1934 - ) – director of the National Science Foundation (Topeka)
• George F. Sternberg (1883-1969) – paleontologist (Lawrence)
• Almon Brown Strowger (1839-1902) - invented the dial telephone in 1891 (El Dorado)
• Clyde Tombaugh (1906-1997) - astronomer who discovered the planet Pluto (Burdette)

Notable Kansans in Business and Industry

• Walter Anderson (1880-1963) – co-founder of the White Castle hamburger chain (St. Marys)
• Dan (1931- ) and Frank (1938- ) Carney – founders of Pizza Hut (Wichita)
• Walter Percy Chrysler (1875-1940) - auto manufacturer, founded Chrysler Corporation in 1925 (Wamego)
• William Coffin Coleman (1870-1957) – founder of the Coleman Company (Wichita)
• David Dillon (1951- ) – former CEO of Kroger (Hutchinson)
• Ray E. Dillon (1897-1996) – co-founder and president of the Dillon grocery chain (Sterling)
• Georgia Neese Clark Gray (1898-1953) – banker, actress, first woman Treasurer of the U.S. (Richland)
• Charles G. Koch (1935) – CEO of Koch Industries, philanthropist (Wichita)
• David H. Koch (1940-2019) – chemical engineer, Koch Industries executive, philanthropist (Wichita)
• Fred Harvey (1835-1901) – railroad restaurateur, his waitresses were known as "Harvey Girls" (Leavenworth)
• F. W. "Woody" Hockaday (1884-1947) – businessman, first person to see a need for highway markings, starting in 1915 he put up signs with arrows and distances between towns on about 60,000 miles of U.S. roads (Caldwell)
• Alan Mulally (1945- ) – aerospace engineer, CEO of the Ford Motors (Lawrence)
• Henry Ford Sinclair (1876-1956) – founder of Sinclair Oil (Independence)
• Russell Stover (1888-1954) – chemist, co-founder of Russell Stover Candies (Alton)

Notable Kansas Architects

• George Franklin Barber (1854-1915) – architect, designed the First Presbyterian Church in Fort Scott (Fort Scott)
• Henry W. Brinkman (1881-1949) – architect, designed St. Joseph Catholic Church in Damar and the Hoisington High School (Garnett)
• Randall Duell (1903-1992) – architect and art director, designed theme parks including Six Flags over Texas (Russell County)
• John G. Haskell (1832-1907) – architect, designed Bailey Hall in Lawrence, Chase County Courthouse, Douglas County Courthouse (Lawrence)
• George Kessler (1862-1923) – landscape architect and city planner, designed the grounds of the University of Kansas and Washburn University, and Gage Park in Topeka (Johnson County)
• James Barney Marsh (1856-1936) – bridge designer, patented a rainbow arch bridge design, designed 76 Kansas bridges, including the John Mack Bridge in Wichita, the Pottawatomie Creek Bridge in Osawatomie, and the Mine Creek Bridge near Mound City (?)
• Nelle Peters (1884-1974) – architect, designed the Ambassador Hotel in Kansas City and the Commodore Apartment Hotel in Wichita (Kansas City)
• Charles Squires (1851-1934) – architect, designed the Dodge City Public Library, the Greenwood Hotel in Eureka, and the Lincoln County Courthouse (Emporia)
• George P. Washburn (1846-1922) – architect, designed 13 Kansas courthouses, including those in Anderson, Franklin, Johnson, Woodson, and Miami counties (Ottawa)
• Thomas Williamson (1887-1974) – architect, designed the Cheyenne, Jackson, Smith and Sheridan County courthouses (Topeka)

Other Notable Kansans

• Erin Brockovich (1960- ) – environmental activist (Lawrence)
• Charles Chaput (1944- ) – first Native American to appointed Archbishop, author (Concordia)
• Wyatt Earp (1848-1929) - legendary lawman
• Reverend Sylvester Graham (1794-1851) - Presbyterian minister who strongly believed in eating whole wheat flour products, the graham cracker was named after him.
• James Butler "Wild Bill" Hickok (1837-1876) - scout, frontier marshal in the Old West
• Tara Dawn Holland (1972- ) – Miss America 1997 (Overland Park)
• Martin (1884-1937) and Osa (1894-1953) Johnson– explorers, photographers, authors, documentary filmmakers (Chanute)
• Bartholomew William Barclay "Bat" Masterson (1853-1921) - legendary lawman and journalist (Wichita)
• Bernard Warkentin (1847-1908) – brought hard winter wheat seeds to Kansas, bank director, helped found Bethel College (Halstead)
• Alice Stebbins Wells (1873-1957) – became one of the first women police officers in the U.S. when she joined the LAPD in 1910 (Manhattan)

Infamous Kansans

• Eddie Adams (1887-1921) – killed seven people, including three policemen (Hutchinson)
• Bender Family (John, Elvira, Kate, John, Jr) – killed at least eleven people in the early 1870s (Labette County)
• Fred "Killer" Burke (1893-1940) – armed robber, contract killer, believed to have been involved in the St. Valentine’s Massacre (Mapleton)
• Mark Essex (1949-1973) – serial sniper, killed nine people, including five policemen (Emporia)
• Richard Hickock (1931-1965) – one of the murderers of the Clutter family that was written in Truman Capote’s book "In Cold Blood" (Kansas City)
• Alvin "Creepy" Karpis (1907-1979) – leader of the Barker-Karpis gang, the fourth (and last) person to be named FBI’s Public Enemy Number One (Topeka)
• George "Bitter Creek" Newcomb (1866-1895) – member of the Dalton Gang and the Wild Bunch gang (Fort Scott)
• Duane Earl Pope (1943- ) – bank robber, killed three people (McPherson County)
• Dennis Rader (1945- ) – serial killer known as BTK, killed ten people in Wichita, KS between 1974 and 1991 (Pittsburg)
• Marc Vincent Sappington (1978- ) – spree killer, cannibal (Kansas City)