Birth Name: Reba Nell McEntireBirth Date: Born March 28, 1955
Parents: Clark Vincent McEntire and Jackie (born Jacqueline Smith)
Siblings: Alice (born 1951), Pake (born 1953), and Susie (born 1957)
Birth Town: Chockie, Oklahoma
Highschool: Kiowa, Oklahoma
Husband: Narvel Blackstock
Children: Reba has one child, a son named Shelby Steven McEntire Blackstock, born February 23, 1990.
During highschool, Reba kept very busy. She was a guard on the Kiowa Cowgirls basketball team, a cheerleader ("They picked me as a cheerleader mainly because I had a big mouth" she says in her book), and also part of the Kiowa Cowboy High School Band. Reba, her brother Pake and her sister Susie also made some extra money singing in bars and clubs as the Singing McEntires. Growing up in "cowboy country", Reba was very found of rodeos. She even used to pay money to barrel race in the rodeos, although she admits that she wasn't very good.
It was at the rodeo that she met her first husband, Charlie Battles. The two married in 1976. It was also through rodeoing that Reba was discovered by Red Steagall in December of 1974 when she sang the national anthem at the National Finals Rodeo.
In 1984 Reba won her first major award- Female Vocalist of The Year at the Country Music Association Awards, which she continued to win for a record 4 years in a row. Reba's career hit new heights in 1986 when she won Entertainer of the Year, the highest honor possible, from the Country Music Association Awards.
It was also around this time Reba says that her marriage took a turn for the worst. In 1987 Reba's marriage with Charlie Battles ended in divorce, and right around the same time her long-time steel guitar player, Narvel Blackstock filed for a divorce from his wife as well. Speculations about the two divorces so close together flew, but Reba said that "...both marriages had been dying for years. Their funerals just happened to come a few months apart". Reba and Narvel soon discovered that they did have a lot in common, especially when it came to the desire to see Reba succeed. The two ended up marrying in 1989 and Narvel was promoted to Reba's manager. A year later Reba's son, Shelby, was born.
Reba seemed to be living a fairytale life when tragedy struck on March 16, 1991. A plane carrying eight of her band members crashed into the side of a mountain just after takeoff outside of the San Diego airport. All eight band members and the two pilots were killed instantly. The band members included Kirk Cappello (musical director, keyboards), Joey Cigainero (synthesizer), road manager Jim Hammon, Chris Austin (vocals, mandolin, guitar, and fiddle), Tony Saputo (drums), Paula Kaye Evans (vocals), Terry Jackson (bass guitar), and Michael Thomas (electric guitar). If anything can bring out the strength in a person, this did it for Reba. Instead of quitting and giving up on her career, Reba went at it full steam ahead. She released her most somber, and possibly her most popular album to date, entitled "For My Broken Heart". Most of the songs on this album drip with emotion, and the last song "If I Had Only Known" seems to be a tribute to her lost friends.
Today, Reba is still as popular as ever. Not only does she had an excellent singing career under her belt, but a solid start on a career as an actress. Having starred in suck movies as "Tremors", "The Gambler Returns: Luck Of The Draw", "North", "Little Rascals", "Buffalo Girls", and her own two tv movies "Is There Life Out There" and "Forever Love". She had even got the part of Molly Brown in the smash 1997 movie "Titanic" starring Kate Winslet and Leonardo DeCaprio, but was forced to turn it down when she dicovered that the filming would interfere with her tour dates (incidently, Kathy Bates was given the part instead). Her 1997 tour with Brooks and Dunn was the highest grossing country tour, and was in the top ten for all genres of music. Her latest album, "If You See Him" has already sold over a million copies and is still climbing. In all aspects orf life, I'd have to say that Reba McEntire has no intentions of slowing down.
