Minnie Pearl

Minnie Pearl, a member of the Grand Ole Opry cast from 1940 until her death in 1996, was country music's preeminent comedian and one of the most widely recognized comic performers American culture has ever produced. With her straw hat and its dangling $1.98 price tag, her representation of herself as a man-chasing spinster in the small town of Grinder's Switch, TN, and her great-hearted holler of "How-DEE! I'm just so proud to be here" as she took to the Opry stage, Pearl became an icon of rural America even as she lovingly satirized its ways. Cousin Minnie Pearl grew up amo...