Bill Pauly (born William Nicholas Pauly, April 20, 1942, Davenport, Iowa; died February 15, 2021, Asbury, Iowa), teacher, college professor of English composition and poetry, and haiku poet. A student, fellow teacher, and close friend of Fr. Raymond Roseliep at Loras College in Dubuque, Iowa, Pauly kept alive Roseliep’s “poetic ministry”—virtually a haiku school in the Japanese mold—after the poet/priest’s death in 1983. Pauly published two small books of haiku Wind the Clock by Bittersweet (1977) and Time from His Bones (1978), but later his work appeared principally in the haiku journals and found success in haiku contests, especially the Haiku Society of America’s Harold G. Henderson Awards for Haiku and Gerald Brady Awards for Senryu. Pauly resided in Dubuque and Asbury, Iowa.

Donna Bauerly (born August 30, 1934, Potosi, Wisconsin), taught for 52 years at various levels, the last 36 as a professor of literature and writing at Loras College, Dubuque, Iowa, and following retirement, as a volunteer 5th grade teacher. Bauerly's haiku have been published in the Haiku Society of America members’ anthologies and in journals including Frogpond and Wind Chimes; she was especially active in the Shiki Internet Kukai. She produced a biography of the pioneering American haijin, Raymond Roseliep, Man of Art Who Loves the Rose (2015), believed to be the first book-length treatment of an English-language haiku poet. Bauerly lives in Dubuque, Iowa.

Raymond Roseliep (born Raymond Francis Roseliep, August 11, 1917, Farley, Iowa, U.S.A.; died December 6, 1983, Dubuque, Iowa, U.S.A.) American Roman Catholic priest, professor emeritus of English, and a resident chaplain at Loras College, Dubuque, Iowa, as well as a critic, poet, and haiku poet. Roseliep pioneered what he called “American haiku,” which diverged from the models of the early translators of Japanese haiku such as R. H. Blyth and sought to reflect the haiku being written in English in the 1960s and 1970s.