1. Auction of plane parts by two separate sellers.
2. The Leon Kaggarise recordings down in D.C.
3. The letters display at the Rock & Soul Museum in Memphis.
4. Progress toward the establishment of the museum in Winchester.
5. The purchase of the homes on Kent Street in Winchester, which were later offered for rental by the company who owns them. And, the subsequent passing of the company's owner.
6. Patsy becomes a great-grandma.
7. Continuing performances of "Always... Patsy Cline" around the country.
8. Continued activity in the fan club.

On the business side of the equation:
1. MCA takes "A Portrait of Patsy Cline" and "Here's Patsy Cline" out of print for the first time since the mid-'60's.
2. Rumors that MCA will reissue "The Patsy Cline Story," "Greatest Hits" and "Always" with their original album cover graphics, as the Universal Music Group continues updating its catalog numbering system for pre-1999 releases.

In 1924 Berlin fell in love with socialite-journalist Ellin Mackay; as a wedding gift he assigned her the rights to this perennial. It transcends its waltz-schmaltz mood with a bridge that almost jumps off itself in ascending keys but manages to sound inevitable. The tune spawned two #1's (for Vincent Lopez and George Olsen) in its first incarnation. There were four more hit versions in 1944-45. In 1959 smooth Sammy Turner took the song to #2 on the R&B chart (#19 pop). Finally it became Patsy Cline's post-mortem anthem; the Virginia thrush's rendition hit #18 on the country chart in 1980, 17 years after her death. And still it didn't die: a tribute musical called "Always, Patsy Cline..." with the song as its emotional centerpiece, played a two-year Nashville run that ended in 1995 — 70 years after the song was introduced.

WSM Could Face Changes, Gaylord says

By: CRAIG HAVIGHURST and BRAD SCHMITT
Staff Writers

Gaylord Entertainment Co. is exploring changes among its three radio properties, including syndicating the Grand Ole Opry and possibly modifying the formats of WWTN-FM, WSM-FM and the historic WSM-AM.

Gaylord Chief Executive Officer Colin Reed said the company is evaluating the operations of its three radio stations, and that classic country WSM-AM is the least profitable of the three.

Reed said the key goal of the Gaylord efforts is to maximize the value of the Opry to the company.

"We are always looking at ways we can improve the profitability of our businesses," Reed said. "We have challenged our management to find ways to do that."

The spice market was open for business again and from a few stalls there came the strains of pop music, a sound so unfamiliar that at the corner of one alley a small group of children stood, slack-jawed, listening to a Patsy Cline song.

Due to waiting for some clearances, we've decided to postpone the Patsy Cline special until March of 2002. Yes, we'll be working with a distributor to have the program aired nationally at a later date. If you'll write me early next February I can give you specific details. Thanks again for your interest.
Wanda Zimmerman, Director of Programming

eBay Halts, Restarts Patsy Cline Wreckage Auction

WINCHESTER, VA (AP) — The online auction of parts of the plane in which country star Patsy Cline died has stalled after the auction was stopped and then restarted last week.

The Mills Brothers of Mills, Tenn., put the belly and tail sections of the plane up for auction on eBay on Sept. 1. The brothers acquired the parts from their father and a purchase earlier this summer from a family in Virginia.

Cline, a Winchester native, was killed on March 5, 1963, in an accident that also took the lives of Hawkshaw Hawkins, Cowboy Copas, and the pilot Randy Hughes, who was Copas' son-in-law and Cline's manager.

According to Eric Mills, bidding stopped for about 24 hours last week after eBay took the items off of its Web site, Mills said.

The auction was most likely taken down as the result of an eBay policy dealing with items related to horrific events, accidents and murders, said company spokesman Kevin Pursglove.

Hall of Fame Fires Five Workers In Major Restructuring

By: CRAIG HAVIGHURST
Staff Writer

Five employees, including 22-year research veteran Ronnie Pugh, were abruptly fired last Friday as part of a major restructuring of the Country Music Hall of Fame & Museum.

The special projects division, where Pugh had spearheaded research on Ernest Tubb and other country music figures, was rolled into the museum's marketing department, leading Pugh and others to charge that the institution's research and historical mission is being compromised at a time when its financial stakes have never been higher.

Also let go was Journal of Country Music editor Chris Dickinson, as well as one employee each from marketing, the museum and the library.

The nonprofit organization, which moved in May into a new $37 million building downtown, reorganized into three divisions and promoted several employees to vice president positions.

Cline Plane Auction Canceled, Reinstated

By: Amy McDaniel

Online auction house eBay temporarily grounded two Jackson brothers' attempt to sell two large pieces of the crashed plane in which country music star Patsy Cline died. An eBay customer service representative yanked Eric and Scott Mills' listing from the web site Thursday afternoon because of a company policy regarding offensive items and language, eBay spokesman Kevin Pursglove said. But after the Mills brothers objected to the cancellation, eBay decided it was a mistake and reinstated the auction Friday, he said.

The seller in any cancelled auction always has a chance to appeal, he said. "A portion of that policy allows us to remove items associated with particularly horrendous accidents or violence," Pursglove said. "We have exercised that policy with Dale Earnhardt memorabilia and memorabilia of the JFK Jr. plane crash." That policy was put in place out of respect for family members of recent accident victims, he said. But he added that Cline's plane pieces don't violate the policy because no gratuitous language was used in the listing and the crash happened almost 40 years ago.

The plane went down in Benton County on March 5, 1963, killing Cline, fellow musicians Cowboy Copas and Hawkshaw Hawkins and pilot Randy Hughes. The Mills brothers bought part of the plane's belly and a section of the tail with a partial identification number, believed to be the two largest remaining scraps, from Benton County farmer W.C. Hollingsworth. Hollingsworth was one of the first people on the scene after the plane went down near Camden.

Patsy’s Fans Make Annual Pilgrimmage To Winchester

By: D.S. Tyson
The Winchester Star

The heavy-set set man with ghost white hair pulled weeds with the vigor of children picking dandelions for their mother.

The more he picked the pesky weeds around a flat headstone, the more his emtotions began to show on his chubby face. Small beads of sweat dashed off his face and splattered on a grave that read simply in part: Virginia Patterson Hensley.

Betting he could win against time and Friday’s thunderstorm, Bernard Miller of Belvidere, Ill., kept pulling the weeds around Patsy Cline’s plot.

When Mother Nature threw her final card, the skies opened and sheets of rain descended from above.

Rejected, he walked back to his black car and headed towards a local hotel and his sixth trip to the annual Patsy Cline Fan Club celebration held this weekend in her home city.

Patsy’s Husband, and More

By: Stephanie K. Moran
The Winchester Star

A linotype operator for this newspaper.

A record company record promotion man.

Part-owner of a television production company.

Father, grandfather, and great-grandfather.

All are roles once or currently filled by former Winchester resident Charlie Dick, who is more famously known as the husband of legendary singer Patsy Cline.

This weekend, fans from all over the world are in Winchester to celebrate the life of Cline, who died in a March 5, 1963, plane crash in Tennessee — at the apex of her popularity.

Charlie’s also in town for the events, visiting again after attending his first Shenandoah Apple Blossom Festival in decades last May.

This year’s festival theme, “Crazy for the Bloom,” honored Cline and one of her most famous songs, the Willie Nelson-penned “Crazy.”

Plane-Wreck Auction Upsets Cline's Fans

By: Janet Kornblum

Scott and Eric Mills may have meant no offense when they decided to hold an online auction selling parts of the 1963 plane that crashed and killed Patsy Cline. But some fans are up in arms over the Jackson, Tenn., brothers' plans to sell two pieces of wreckage in an eBay auction that starts Saturday.

Some have asked the Country Music Hall of Fame in Nashville to buy the pieces, but curator Mark Medley says the price is too high: a minimum $50,000 for a 2-by-4-by-3-foot piece of the tail, and a piece of the belly the size of a car hood. "We simply do not have the funds in our acquisition budget for this," he says.

Some are upset that the wreckage is being sold at all.

"When I heard about that, I was sick to my stomach," a fan wrote on an Internet message board. The crash killed Cline and three others on March 5, 1963.

The Mills brothers' father bought the plane's belly in 1978 from a man who had taken the wreckage from the site, says Scott Mills. In June, they bought the tail section from the same man, who had it in his barn.

This Is A Portion of the Plane Patsy Cline Was Killed In During A Crash In 1963
(The Winchester Star, Photo Courtesy of Eric Mills)

Brothers Are Auctioning Pieces Of Patsy Cline’s Doomed Plane

By: Stephanie K. Moran
The Winchester Star

Two portions of an airplane involved in one of country music’s darkest moments go on the Internet auction block at the beginning of September.

Eric and Scott Mills, of Jackson, Tenn., plan to put two pieces of the Piper Comanche that went down while flying through stormy skies March 5, 1963, near Camden, Tenn., killing all four people aboard.

That quartet were Winchester native and singing legend Patsy Cline, country artists Cowboy Copas and Hawkshaw Hawkins, as well as pilot Randy Hughes — who was both Cline’s manager and the son-in-law of Copas.

The wreckage was discovered by members of the Camden-area Hollingsworth family in an area known as Fatty Bottom, according to a number of Cline biographers.

The plane sections being sold on eBay by the Mills brothers are from the airplane’s belly and tail, Eric said in a recent telephone interview.

"These plane pieces are the largest pieces in the world," he said.

Scott Mills Shows A Piece of What May Be the Piper Comanche In Which Patsy Cline Died.
(Eric Parsons Photo, The Tennessean)

Two Pieces of Patsy Cline Plane To Be Auctioned On eBay

By: LEON ALLIGOOD
Staff Writer

Two brothers from Jackson, Tenn., are planning an online auction of two crumpled pieces of the Piper Comanche that they contend is the plane in which Patsy Cline and three others perished in 1963.

The bidding will begin at midnight Aug. 31 on the eBay auction site. Opening price: $100,000.

At that deep-pockets cost, Scott and Eric Mills said, the successful bidder will own a unique piece of country music history, even if the pieces probably aren't something anyone would want to mount on the living room wall.

"This is one of a kind," said Scott Mills, 29, as he let down the tailgate to his pickup to reveal the two pieces of metal, which he identified as the belly and the tail section of the plane.

The brothers came to Nashville yesterday to show the remnants to an official at the Country Music Hall of Fame. While Curator Mark Medley was impressed by the men's discovery, he said the museum would not be a likely bidder, "but we may seek an arrangement with the buyer to loan it to the museum."