Reba Receives Prestigious Honor At 2024 Western Heritage Awards

Reba McEntire received the Lifetime Achievement Award at the 2024 Western Heritage Awards held in Oklahoma City earlier this month. The country icon is now the eighth person to have this prestigious honor in the 63-year history of the awards.

The ceremony was held at the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum. McEntire was presented with a Wrangler Award and a commemorative Western buckle and belt created by the Traditional Cowboy Arts Association, as seen in photos posted by the National Cowboy Museum on Instagram.

"I was honored to receive the Lifetime Achievement Award this past weekend at the Western Heritage Awards. I always want to be the cowgirl that stands up for the underdog, and that's what this award means to me," Reba posted to Facebook.

According to nationalcowboymusesum.org, "The Western Heritage Awards honors individuals who have made significant contributions to Western heritage through creative works in literature, music, television and film that share the great stories of the American West."

The 2024 inductees included Jack LeForce (Hall of Great Westerners / Oklahoma), Buster Welch (Hall of Great Westerners / Texas), Keith Carradine (Hall of Great Western Performers), Noah Beery Jr. (Hall of Great Western Performers), John Smith (Hall of Great Western Performers), Don Reeves (Chester A. Reynolds Award), Mo Brings Plenty (New Horizon), and McEntire (Lifetime Achievement).

Before accepting the award, McEntire shared some advice to young cowgirls and reflected on her life living out West with Cowboys & Indians magazine. "Love yourself. Respect yourself. If you don't love and respect yourself why would you expect anyone else to," she said.

McEntire released her latest project, Not That Fancy, in October 2023, which features stripped-down versions of some of the country singer's biggest hits. It also includes her newest single, "Seven Minutes In Heaven," and an acoustic version of "Till You Love Me."

Fans can catch McEntire as a judge on The Voice Mondays on NBC and streaming on Peacock.

Long before country music really gripped on to the music video, Reba McEntire was telling her story songs in video format.

To this journalist's surprise, Reba has never won a CMT Music Award, but in 1991, she won the Video of the Year award at the ACMs for her work on the video "Is There Life Out There." The song also inspired a TV movie that she acted in.

Over the years, I've talked to Reba many times about her life as an actress. She told me once of her dream acting role, "There are a lot of times when I go to movies, and I say, 'Why didn't they cast me for that part? I could have done that. A dream role would be ten different kinds because I would like to hit all facets, like the kooky neighbor down the hall or the heroine in a Western."

She added, "There's just so many different types. I love to watch television. I love movies, so acting is something that entertains me."

In 2021, she got to act along with fellow country icon and actress Dolly Parton. She told me of filming the video for "Does He Love You," "My favorite part about getting to film a music video with Dolly Parton was getting to visit with her in between; second was singing with her. To get to hang out and visit like girlfriends was so much fun. Dolly walked in and said hi to everybody, all the camera people, the crew, and the band there. She's the sweetheart that you think she's gonna be. That's been the case every time I've gotten to work with Dolly."

She added of the experience, "I loved the acting; we got to play-act like we were women at odds, and by the end, we were like, 'Ah, you can have him. I don't want him.' it was a lot of fun."

Reba has acted in many movies and TV movies over the years and even had her very own TV sitcom to showcase her acting skills. She won a People's Choice Award in 2002 for her role as Reba Hart in the TV sitcom Reba for "Favorite Female Actress In A New Television Series."

Here, we take a look at some of the very best Reba music video classics to date.

Reba plays a waitress in this dramatic music video that was also a TV movie. The story and drama of this video are lovely, and this journalist also has a soft spot for it. Full disclosure: I was an extra in the film and video as a graduate in cap and gown. It was filmed at Vanderbilt's campus in Nashville. This is the video Reba won the ACM Award in 1991 for Video of the Year. Singer Huey Lewis stars as her husband in the music video. In the 1994 TV movie, actor Keith Carradine plays that part.

This is another music video that could be a movie. Reba notes it as one of her favorite songs. In the video, Reba plays her character as an older woman as she tells the story. Her character is the little sister and convicted killer in the sad story.

In 1987, McEntire won the GRAMMY Award for Best Female Country Vocal Performance for this song. It was her first GRAMMY win. The music video was one of Reba's first to really show her dramatic actress side.

Reba did this song and a music video for it in 1993 with Linda Davis. However, in 2021, she made music history when she redid the duet with country icon Dolly Parton. It was the first time the two country Queens recorded a song together. Their performance of the song was nominated for a GRAMMY for Best Country Duo/Group Performance in 2022. The version of the song with Davis won the GRAMMY award for Best Country Vocal Collaboration in 1994.

This is Reba's biggest hit and her most talked about music video. When Carrie Underwood scored her 15th number-one song on country radio "Church Bells," in 2016, she recalled that when the song came out, she believed it was sort of [inlink id="carrie-underwood-little-sister-to-reba-fancy" text="a smaller version"] of Reba's song.

Underwood told me about it in a recent interview. "'Church Bells' is like 'Fancy's' little sister (laughs) — Reba and 'Fancy.' And she gets out and makes a name for herself by, you know, she's got her dancin' dress and all that stuff. And this one she starts, you know, she's young, she's pretty, she's poor — doin' what she can to survive, meets a man that has a lot of wealth and is supposed to, you know, take care of her and get her out of this."