Patsy Cline honored

For many people, country music legend Patsy Cline is more than just an icon -- she is a friend. She is the person who has been with them during some of life's most precious moments. For some, she was the soundtrack to a first kiss, first dance, or first romance, and for others, she was the inspiration behind their current music careers.

"She's like their angel," said Judy Sue Huyett-Kempf, the Executive Director of the Patsy Cline Historic House, "She just rides with them or sits with them wherever they go. She transcends the time."

Soon visitors to Winchester, Va., Cline's home town, will be able to feel even closer. A local group is renovating Cline's family home and hopes to open it to the public in mid-June.

Huyett-Kempf was involved in Winchester tourism for years, and noticed that many buses and groups stopped by asking for Patsy Cline tours, but the city had nothing to offer.

Although Huyett-Kempf knew Cline was from Winchester, she knew very little about her or her music. As she researched her and talked with Cline's family and friends, she began to feel as if Cline was a part of her. She is now a wealth of knowledge about Cline, her music, her family and her legacy.

"I describe her as the Madonna of the '50's," she said. "She's a young lady who knew she had a given talent, wanted the world to know this, and wanted to share it with everybody. She went through so much to become recognized. And when she made it, she only lived for a short time."

Huyett-Kempf was a part of the group Celebrating Patsy Cline Inc. The group decided to acquire Cline's childhood home and transform it into an historical nugget.

"After research and investigation, I realized we have a gem and it's right here in Winchester," she said. "It's been a labor of love."

They earned the money they needed for the project in under a year. They are working to restore the home to the time when Cline lived there with her mother and brother from November 1948 through November 1959. They are currently in the process of finding replicas of all the furniture. Huyett-Kempf's goal is recreate everything to the way it looked in Cline's time. She wants visitors to feel it is so life-like that Cline could walk out of a room at any time.

"It will be that real," Huyett-Kempf said. "They'll be walking with Patsy. True fans want to walk where Cline walked. They want to eat what she ate. From the moment she got out of bed to the moment she would go to bed at night."

The Winchester Frederick County Visitor's Center opened a Patsy Cline exhibit on April 9th, and will be open through December.

Though the exhibit is small, it shows just how crazy Cline's fans were over her. The room holds replicas of her red cowgirl costumes and of the western-styled furniture Cline and her husband purchased when they moved to Nashville.

Cline is the most popular female country singer in recording history. She earned a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame as well as appearing at New York's Carnegie Hall, making her the only Winchester-born native to do both.

Douglas Gomery, author of "Patsy Cline: The Making of an Icon," says Cline was a Southern Baptist, but was often too busy to attend church during her life. She did record some gospel songs, including "Just a Closer Walk With Thee."

Her music still resonates with listeners today. Country music's strength lies in the way it connects with the heart of America by capturing stories of everyday life. It sings of grace, lasting marriages, tight-knit families, summer romances, faith and hard times.

Joe Carter, adjunct professor of web journalism at Patrick Henry College, believes country music's popularity stems from the fact that it is more relatable than other genres of music.

"A lot of young people seem to think that all country musicians do is sing about how the dog died, the truck broke down and their woman ran off," Carter says, "What they don't realize is that by the time you hit forty you'll have had your share of dead dogs, dead batteries and dead-end relationships. Most people find that you can relate to that type of music better than you can songs about drinking champagne while driving in your Rolls and getting shot at by rival East Coast rappers."

Gene Edward Veith, Provost of Patrick Henry College and author of 18 books, writes in his book "Honky-Tonk Gospel: The Story of Sin and Salvation in Country Music," "Spiritual concerns jostle with earthly concerns. They are not separated or compartmentalized. Land and judgment day, rambling and damnation, murder and piety, rowdiness and salvation: the spirituality here is not some gnostic otherworldly mysticism, but something grounded in the tangible facts of ordinary life. And ordinary life which includes transgressions and suffering as well as pleasures and comforting relationships has eternal significance."

After Cline's fatal plane crash on March 3, 1963, near Camdem, Tenn., at the height of her career, she was buried in Winchester's Shenandoah Memorial Park, which plays hymns daily at 6 p.m.