Fairmont's Sagebrush Round-Up inducts 'Pioneers' into W.Va. Country Music Hall of Fame

Jun. 24—BUNNER RIDGE — While 87-year-old Ronnie Vandergrift was serving in the U.S. Army, his two older brothers Richard and Don were back home in Fairmont becoming famous.

Until his passing at the age of 21, Richard Vandergrift played the dobro, performed a lot of backup singing and, along with Don, had been broadcast live on the WMMN Fairmont radio show, "The Sagebrush Round-Up" and the "Wheeling Jamboree" on radio station WWVA.

Saturday night, the West Virginia Country Music Hall of Fame at the Sagebrush Round-Up and Museum on Bunner Ridge inducted Don, Richard and Ronnie Vandergrift — who became The Famous Vandergrift Brothers — as Pioneers of West Virginia Country Music.

"It's such a great honor to just be happening, I mean," Ronnie Vandergrift said. "It's hard to explain. It is hard to put into words how I really feel."

Country gospel artist JoAnn Davis, Doc and Chickie Williams' daughter Karen McKenzie, Roy Scott's daughters Lori, Lois and Janice Scott of Harmony Scott, Roger Hoard, Johnny Cochran and the Cochran Family were also inducted into the Hall of Fame as West Virginia Country Music Pioneers on Saturday.

Davis and her late husband Jimmy Stephens, who was inducted and honored Saturday as well, were dubbed "Sweethearts of the Jamboree," after becoming an audience favorite.

According to the website, Hillbilly-Music.com, "The pair worked on many package shows and toured with other WWVA acts such as Doc & Chickie Williams, Bob Gallion & Patti Powell, Crazy Elmer, Karen McKenzie, Holly Garrett, and sometimes Nashville stars as well."

Davis, who lives in the Wheeling area, said she wished Stephens could be with her to accept the honor.

"I think everybody has a chance or an opportunity to make something meaningful in their life, and I believe that the meaningful in our life was the gospel and the country music," Davis said. "And when I had the phone call that we were being inducted down here, I cried. That's how honored and privileged and happy I was because it's such an honor. I'm thrilled."

The Sagebrush Round-Up Hall of Fame Committee set out this year to ensure that some of West Virginia's well-known acts from the 1930s do not get forgotten.

Hall of Fame Committee Member Lisa Janoske, who also doubles as Sagebrush board secretary, and plays bass in The Roundup Band, recalls the time when families would gather around their radio and listen to shows such as Sagebrush Round-Up, the Wheeling Jamboree and The Grand Ole Opry.

"So our goal here is to keep live country music alive, keep those old classic tunes going for the younger generation, so they can remember them and then put these pioneers into the Hall of Fame, so they can come around and read them, see their faces, maybe go further," she said.

That feeling of bonding over music is evident today at the music hall on Bunner Ridge. What may appear to many as a night of mini-musical performances, is somewhat like a family reunion to others.

Members of the Bluegrass band, the Cochran Family, first came to Sagebrush Round-Up when they were children and became a regular act at the Wheeling Jamboree in 1972. Jimmy Cochran, of Webster Springs, W.Va., said he is honored to perform on stage with his siblings and to be inducted along with his family.

"Getting inducted into the West Virginia Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum is a big honor for the whole Cochran Family — those who are here and those who are going to be with us tonight," Jimmy Cochran said.

Cochran praised the Sagebrush Round-Up for preserving the history of West Virginia country music.

"You got to have someone to carry it on — the music, the musicians can't do it all," Jimmy Cochran said. "You have to have people that's going to promote it and to promote country music and bluegrass music, you got to have facilities like, where we're playing today."

The recordings of Roy Scott played on the speakers in the Museum side of the building as Lois Scott and her sisters Lori and Janice posed for photographs. From 1947 to 1968, Roy Scott had his own Saturday night show after being officially welcomed into the family at The Wheeling Jamboree in 1947.

"Well, we all grew up watching dad, listening to dad, learning from dad," Lori said. "He was on the Jamboree in Wheeling and was a big part of West Virginia music history."

Honored to accept their father's induction into the Hall of Fame, the trio performed for 25 years with their father.

"We felt him. We felt him the minute we walked in," Lois said.

Reach Eric Cravey at 304-367-2523.