Chautauqua Coal Miner’s Daughter at Highlands

Chautauqua Coal Miner’s Daughter at Highlands

Pamela Hall

The Ashland Beacon

Eastern Kentucky is well known for the many musicians it produces, not only at the local level, but also at the professional level. One only has to travel the Country Music Highway, Route 23, to see the number of professional musicians that have come from this area. One of the most popular was Loretta Lynn from Butcher Hollow in nearby Van Lear.

      Although Loretta passed away in 2022 at the age of 90, through the courtesy of the Kentucky Humanities Chautauqua program we can still “meet” her and hear her amazing story. The Highlands DO!zeum will host the Kentucky Chautauqua presenter Lisa Woods portraying Loretta Lynn on Thursday, July 16 at 6:00 p.m.

      According to Heather Whitman, curator and registrar of the museum, Highlands has done a series of Kentucky Chautauqua for the past few years, featuring three or four performers each year.

     “This one is special because it’s free,” Whitman said. “This is due to a grant from Kentucky Humanities called ‘Our American Story, Kentucky Voices.’ It is part of the America 250 celebration.”

     As part of the program, the museum could choose from four categories: Remembering Together, Growing Together, Harmonizing Together, and Moving Together.

     “We picked Harmonizing Together,” Whitman explained, “because of our Country Music Hall and because of Kentucky's rich music heritage.”

Kentucky Chautauqua is a program of 23 performers that portray historically significant Kentuckians that have made valuable contributions to the history of the state. The performers travel throughout the state to schools and community organizations to entertain and educate about the colorful and rich history of Kentucky.

Lisa Woods, who portrays Loretta Lynn, is a native of Woodford County, Kentucky and is currently based in Lexington. She is an accomplished actor, designer, director, teacher, and writer who has worked professionally in New York, Chicago, and many other cities. She is a current adjunct faculty member in the theatre program at the University of Kentucky. As part of her portrayal of Loretta Lynn, she will be performing several of Loretta’s songs, including Coal Miner’s Daughter.

Loretta had a most interesting life in Butcher Hollow and beyond. She was born in 1932 to Melvin Theodore “Ted” and Clara Webb, the second of eight children. They lived in a small cabin that was wallpapered with pages from an old Sears and Roebuck catalog. At the age of 14, she married Oliver “Doolittle” Lynn, whom she had only known for about a month. He bought her a $17 guitar when she was 18 and started her career by having her sing in the Washington area where they lived. She wrote her first song, Honky Tonk Girl and released it as a single in 1960. She and Doo, as she called him, traveled from radio station to radio station to promote the song, which rose to number 14 on the Billboard charts. After moving to Nashville, she became friends with Patsy Cline. In 1972, she was the first woman to be named Entertainer of the Year by the Country Music Association and won four Grammy’s during her career.

Don’t miss the Kentucky Chautauqua portrayal of Loretta Lynn by Lisa Woods at the Highlands DO!zeum, Thursday, July 16 at 6 :00 p.m. Admission is free thanks to Kentucky Humanities.