Reba shares painful past

Singer revisits plane crash on TV show

NASHVILLE: More than 20 years after a plane crash killed seven members of her band and her tour manager, Reba Mcentire ( pic) can still clearly see the hotel room she was in when she got the news.

The emotion came flooding back when she revisited that tragic day in 1991 on Oprah’s Master Class on the OWN cable television network last night. It’s a rare break in composure from the queen of country music.

“I don’t guess it ever quits hurting,” she said on the show, recalling how she tearfully followed husband-manager Narvel Blackstock room to room as he called people to let them know.

“It’s the worst thing that’s ever happened in my life.”

From that tragedy, she learned to make each day count and not to put anything off until tomorrow. However, Mcentire said after the crash, she built up a wall so she would not get close to anybody, and it took time for her to open up to members of her touring family again.

She accepted support from industry friends like Dolly Parton, who helped her put a new band together, and she took solace in her strong work ethic.

“I had a huge organisation and I needed to continue working because that’s their paycheck also,” she said in a phone interview from just outside Dublin on Thursday.

“I had to take care of the people who are still here. So it wasn’t a thing where I could quit. I had to go on with my life, my career for them, for my family, for my sanity.”

Hard work is a defining theme in Mcentire’s life, and it has served her “tremendously” throughout her career. It’s something she learned early on from her father, Clark, when she was put to work as a kid on the family’s ranch in Oklahoma.

“If you do that in any job, if you can take direction, if you’re coachable, and you give it all, you’re going to be successful,” she said on the phone.

Mcentire is now a member of the Country Music Hall of Fame and has sold more than 55 million albums worldwide. She also runs a successful fashion and merchandise line.—