We are pleased to announce that our 177th Annual Membership Meeting will be presented virtually, Tuesday, May 26, 2026, 5:00 pm CT/6:30 pm CT.

“ ‘Howdy!’: The Minnie Pearl Story”

Born Sarah Ophelia Colley in 1912, Minnie Pearl grew up in Centerville, Tennessee. This small-town upbringing inspired her imagined hometown of Grinder’s Switch.

During the Great Depression, Sarah moved to Nashville to study theater at the Ward-Belmont School. After graduating, she joined a touring theater company and performed throughout the Southeast. It was on the road, in 1936, that she met and stayed with Mattie Burden. Mattie became the inspiration for Minnie Pearl’s iconic persona—a witty country girl known for her signature greeting and straw hat with a dangling price tag.

Minnie Pearl’s big break came in 1940 when a friend of a WSM radio executive saw her perform and recommended her for the Grand Ole Opry. Her debut marked the beginning of a career that spanned more than fifty years. Throughout her career, Sarah Ophelia Colley Cannon skillfully balanced her dual roles as Minnie and Sarah.

Speaker Mary Ellen Pethel is an associate professor at Belmont University, where she directs the Global Honors Program. Her work focuses on history, leadership, education, and public scholarship, with an emphasis on connecting academic inquiry with community engagement. Pethel earned her PhD in history from Georgia State University. Pethel is the author of six books, including Title IX, Pat Summitt, and Tennessee’s Trailblazers. She is the executive director of Nashville Sites, which offers free walking and driving tours throughout Nashville. Current projects include her work as a senior consultant on the docuseries If Not For Them and as a producer for a documentary examining the Civil Rights movement in Nashville. She also serves as archivist at Harpeth Hall School and regularly engages public audiences through lectures, interviews, and media appearances.

Speaker Don Cusic is Curb Professor of music industry history and professor of music business at Belmont University. He received a doctor of arts degree in English from Middle Tennessee State University. He is also one of the premier historians of country music, an internationally known scholar and writer. He is currently the co-host of the annual International Country Music Conference. Cusic is the author of over thirty books, including biographies of Roger Miller, Eddy Arnold, Gene Autry and Chet Atkins. In 2022, Cusic was inducted into the Western Music Hall of Fame.

Their book ‘Howdy!’: The Minnie Pearl Story received the 2025 Tennessee History Book Award.

Registration is free and open to the public.