Press Releases

Wexton Introduces Bill to Rename Winchester Post Office After Country Music Legend Patsy Cline

Washington, February 26, 2021
 
Washington, DC -- Today, Congresswoman Jennifer Wexton (D-VA) introduced legislation to rename the post office on the pedestrian walking mall in Winchester, Virginia after country music icon Patsy Cline. All of Wexton’s fellow Virginia delegation colleagues in the House are cosponsors of the legislation.

“I’m excited to introduce this legislation and honor Winchester’s own Patsy Cline,” said Congresswoman Jennifer Wexton. “The support this bill has received from Roanoke to Norfolk to Arlington shows the enduring legacy of Patsy Cline and the popularity she still holds. Nearly 60 years after her untimely death, people still Fall to Pieces over her music and this bill proves that we’re still Crazy over her.”

“Tapping the U.S. Postal Service facility on the Loudoun Street Pedestrian Mall in downtown Winchester in honor of Patsy Cline is an ideal way to acknowledge the importance of her presence in her hometown,” said Karen Helms, President of Celebrating Patsy Cline, Inc./ Patsy Cline Historic House. “In January 1957, CBS’s Arthur Godfrey’s Talent Scouts introduced our local celebrity as “Patsy Cline from Winchester Virginia” on live television just before her winning performance of “Walkin’ After Midnight", and launched her as a national celebrity. This U.S. Postal Service facility is near the Patsy Cline Historic House, a National Historic Landmark, where Patsy lived the longest of anywhere in her life. Even when dreams took her to Nashville, she always called Winchester her home.”

Virginia Patterson Hensley, or "Patsy Cline," was born in Winchester, Virginia, in 1932. Her career stands out as one of the most impressive in country music history. Patsy Cline was the first female solo artist to become a member of the Grand Ole Opry in 1960 and the first female solo artist to be inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1973. CMT has ranked her #1 in their Countdown of the Greatest Women in Country Music, and generations of future artists from Reba McEntire to Cyndi Lauper have cited her as an influence on their careers. Tragically, Patsy Cline was killed in a plane crash in Tennessee in 1963 at the age of 30.

The Patsy Cline Historic House, where she lived from 1948 to 1953, is in the National Register of Historic Places and the Virginia Landmarks Register and remains a popular tourist attraction in Winchester. Patsy Cline's final resting place is just a few miles south of the house, in Shenandoah Memorial Park, where a bell tower was built in her memory in the 1980s.

The full text of the bill can be found here.

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