Becky Starnes has replicated Minnie Pearl’s costume from the $1.98 price tag to the pantaloons. Photo by Natasha Whitling

One of Becky Starnes’ favorite childhood memories is of being packed into the old Ryman Auditorium on a hot, humid Nashville evening. Nearly every hand in the room was waving a fan as the audience enjoyed a Grand Ole Opry performance.

It was at the Opry that Starnes was introduced to a woman who would be a part of her life for over 50 years. At age 10, Starnes got her first glimpse of Minnie Pearl as she performed a comedy routine with Rod Brasfield. “I saw how much fun they were having, and I thought ‘I can have fun like that!’” Starnes said. After another trip to the Ryman at age 12, Starnes decided she would develop her own impersonation of Minnie Pearl.

Starnes’ first Minnie Pearl dress was made from a colorful chicken feed sack purchased at a local feed store in her hometown of Lexington. Fifty– two years and 2,500 performances later, Starnes has gone through three pairs of pantaloons and is wearing her twelfth dress.

Becky Starnes with her mother, Faye Lindler, in Aiken Photo contributed by Becky Starnes Her current dress has special significance. The fabric used to make the dress belonged to her late mother, Faye Lindler, and was made by Carolyn Arant, a close friend who married her brother–in– law, Martin, after Starnes’ sister Rachel’s tragic death in 1965. Arant found the lace she used to trim the dress among Rachel’s belongings.

Starnes, 64, has performed her act at various functions for churches, community clubs, senior citizen groups, nursing homes, and conventions. “I get most of my business by word of mouth,” Starnes said. “Demand has really picked up in the last 10 to 15 years. I guess it is a desire for nostalgia.”

She prepared for her act by carefully studying Pearl’s radio broadcasts and records and adapting good down home humor she picked up along the way. Starnes’ costume is vintage Pearl from the white stockings to the $1.98 price tag on her hat.

“The price tag was a complete accident,” Starnes said. “Minnie was just looking for some new flowers for her hat when she was in Aiken. She went out on stage with the tag still on, and the rest is history.”

Even after all these years, Starnes still gets butterflies in her stomach before every performance. “But once I step into character, I feel right at home,” she said. Her acts can last anywhere from 10–45 minutes and are often accompanied by an a cappella version of one of Minnie Pearls songs, How to Catch a Man or My Feller.

Many people have told Starnes she should get an agent and move to Nashville, but she is perfectly content with her home in Sandy Run. She and her husband, Gerald, have two children and three grandchildren.

In 1991 Pearl suffered a massive stroke which left her bedridden until her death in 1996. When Starnes heard about Pearl’s stroke, she wrote her a letter to let her know what she has meant to her and how she has shaped her life. “Minnie and I have traveled many a road together,” Starnes said. “I’ll continue to impersonate her as long as my mind will let me.”