Patsy Theme Raises Funds For Healthy Families

By: Star Traylor
The Winchester Star

Healthy Families Northern Shenandoah Valley got a boost Saturday from a fund-raiser in its honor.

Healthy Families NSV is a private, community-based nonprofit organization that serves the city of Winchester and Frederick and Clarke counties. It works with first-time families to support positive parenting by providing information, referrals, and home visits by family support workers.

Five local couples organized the fund-raiser, held in the barn at Hackwood, an estate in Frederick County. About 150 people attended.

The theme for the party was "A Crazy Honky-Tonk Evening with Patsy," memorializing Winchester’s local heroine Patsy Cline.

The Birthday Gal…

Here’s my birthday toast to our Darlin’ Patsy: hold up your drinks, y’all…

70 years ago today, the Lord sent an angel named Ginny to sing in the Shenandoah Valley…

Through the years you struggled through poverty and pain, never losing sight of your dream.

Caring for your family, and those around you, you never forgot your roots.

With a laugh, voice and heart as big as the mountains that you loved, you brightened the world with your song.

You taught us strength and courage, bearing the scars to prove it; which only added to your beauty.

Your dark, soulful eyes radiated light, love, and life.

You were called back to the Lord's arms so soon, but we will never forget…

The lessons of love that you sent.

You live on in all of us, and fill our hearts with laughter and tears.

I will always love you through the years.

Happy Birthday, Darlin’. May you lead Heaven’s choir, and I know that you and Mom Hensley are celebratin' together, and smilin’ down on us. Wish you were here, but in my heart, that’s just where you are, and I’ll never let you go.

I fall to pieces when I hear you, and go crazy when I can't. I'm always hidin' out havin' sweet dreams about the next new picture or song that might turn up. You made me love you, and I'll never have leavin' on my mind!!

Let’s have some chocolate cake, and a big, cold Dr. Pepper for our doll, and belt out a growwlllin' happy birthday song!

Love Ya Patsy, I’ll bet you’d still be a knockout at 70, Honey!!

Here's to ya, WE LOVE YA, MISS YA, WILL NEVER FORGET YA!!

Patsy Cline Group To Buy Home For Museum

By: Kelly Cupp
The Winchester Star

The white house with black shutters looks like any other normal quiet, humble home found along Kent Street.

Inside the house, however, the history of a nationwide country-music star unfolds.

The heartaches, the joys, the uncertainty, the triumphs can all be felt within the walls of 608 S. Kent St.

Now a legion of fans will be able to sense those feelings as they walk though Patsy Cline’s old home in Winchester.

Country music legend and Winchester native Patsy Cline was born Sept. 8, 1932, and died in a plane crash March 5, 1963. This year for the first time, and coinciding with the 15th Annual Patsy Cline Weekend, Celebrating Patsy Cline Inc. was able to officially throw open the doors to the two-story home and invite guests for a look. Members of the fan club, Always Patsy Cline, were the guests for the invitation-only event. Her fans could be found hanging out on the front porch, or walking through the home soaking up the atmosphere where Cline once lived.

Always Patsy
Country Star's Fan Club Members Gather To Remember

By: Ben Orcutt

Members of the Always Patsy Cline Fan Club are devoted to making sure the country music legend is never forgotten. And, their devotion and zeal to pre-serving the memory of the Winchester native was never more evident than on Saturday, when the group held its annual business meeting and luncheon at Travelodge.

Randy Rokisky, a 52-year-old retired corrections officer from Brooklyn, NY, was making the trek for the fan club's annual Labor Day weekend of festivities for the second year.

"I wrote a poem of Patsy Cline that they're going to have in the museum," Rokisky said proudly. "The poem is 'Always'."

"May her star shine in the heavens, Ever so brightly, Now, forever and never to be forgotten, Always," is the poem's last verse.

Like many of the other fan club members on hand for Saturday's luncheon, Rokisky was wearing a T-shirt with Cline's photo on the front. "I think she's just far above the rest of the country singers," Rokisky said. "Her talent just cannot be measured."

That was a familiar refrain for many of the estimated 200 fan club members, some of whom traveled thousands of miles to pay homage to Cline and to be with others like-minded. Club general manager Mel Dick said the group has about 950 members worldwide.

Cline Fans Celebrate Buying Patsy’s Home

By: Andrew Martel
The Winchester Star

Anne Armstrong has had a friend for more than 40 years, but Sunday will be the first time she will be invited to her home.

Armstrong’s friend is Patsy Cline and the home is 608 S. Kent St., where the country legend grew up. The invite is possible now that Celebrating Patsy Cline, Inc. has filed a Letter of Intent to purchase the home and finally create a museum and site dedicated solely to Patsy.

While the tour will be a perquisite for the fan club members, the greater joy, some say, is from finally knowing that Patsy's home will be protected and preserved to honor her legacy.

Celebrating Patsy Cline, Inc. will be able to obtain the house now that it has recieved a $18,500 check from Preservation of Historic Winchester, Inc. PHW, which preserves and restores historic property, donated the net proceeds from its 2002 Blues festival, held in Winchester in June.

CMT Saluting Country Women

By: Brian Mansfield
Special for USA TODAY

In 1952, Kitty Wells sang It Wasn't God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels. CMT didn't make them either, but the country-music cable channel will rank them in a three-hour special premiering Friday.

CMT 40 Greatest Women of Country Music, hosted by actor Billy Campbell (Once and Again, Enough), first airs Friday at 9 p.m. ET/PT, with repeat airings throughout the weekend.

Wells made the list. So did Patsy Cline, Dolly Parton, Faith Hill and Shania Twain. It includes artists as old as the late "Mother" Maybelle Carter, the influential guitarist who played and sang with the Carter Family in the 1920s and '30s, and as young as LeAnn Rimes.

Family threads run through the list. Carter, her daughter June Carter Cash and Cash's stepdaughter Rosanne Cash all made the cut, as did sisters Loretta Lynn and Crystal Gayle. Some singers, such as Brenda Lee, Linda Ronstadt and Wanda Jackson, had more pop hits but retained strong country ties. Others, such as actress Dale Evans, comedian Minnie Pearl and songwriter Cindy Walker, made significant contributions beyond recording and performing. In all, the list actually consists of 43 women, if you count the members of The Judds and the Dixie Chicks separately.

CMT spokeswoman Dixie Weathersby says the ranking was compiled from nearly 1,000 ballots sent to artists, music critics, industry professionals and radio stations.

Lynn Anderson, Mary Chapin Carpenter, Maybelle Carter, June Carter Cash, Rosanne Cash, Patsy Cline, Dixie Chicks, Dale Evans, Crystal Gayle, Emmylou Harris, Faith Hill, Wanda Jackson, The Judds, Alison Krauss, k.d. lang, Brenda Lee, Patty Loveless, Loretta Lynn, Barbara Mandrell, Martina McBride, Reba McEntire, Patsy Montana, Lorrie Morgan, Anne Murray, K.T. Oslin, Dolly Parton, Minnie Pearl, LeAnn Rimes, Linda Ronstadt, Connie Smith, Pam Tillis, Tanya Tucker, Shania Twain, Cindy Walker, Kitty Wells, Dottie West, Lucinda Williams, Lee Ann Womack, Tammy Wynette and Trisha Yearwood.