Philip Martin devoted Monday to the memory of a woman he never met. Her voice spoke to him and his college classmates back in the early 1970s, when it felt like country wasn’t cool.

She had already been gone for a decade, but Patsy Cline’s rich, emotional vocals helped keep Martin going as a Birmingham Southern University undergraduate.

Forty-two years have passed since Cline died in a March 5, 1963, Tennessee airplane crash, and no museum in her honor stands in her hometown of Winchester. But Martin, a 54-year-old Nashville native and Reston businessman, intends to change that.

Celebrating Patsy Cline Inc., the Winchester-based group devoted to creating a museum in Cline’s honor, elected Martin its board president in February.

He knows unfulfilled museum promises have disappointed Cline fans over the years, so he attended 14 half-hour meetings Monday in an effort to make dashed expectations things of the past.

Philip Martin, the new president of Celebrating Patsy Cline Inc.,
is surrounded by images of the country music legend
while standing in one of her former haunts,
Gaunt’s Drug Store at the corner of
S. Loudoun Street & Valley Avenue.
[Photograph by Rick Foster]

“I think there’s a lot of pent-up demand,” for a museum in Winchester, Martin said. He recognizes the suspicions some people may have and asked the question many may have asked themselves: “Is this another round of just a lot of talk”? Martin said he hopes action will replace empty promises.

“To me, he’s a breath of fresh air,” said longtime Celebrating Patsy Cline board member Judy Sue Huyett-Kempf. “He’s for Patsy.” Martin has “a fire that I haven’t seen for a long time,” and that passion has reinvigorated many board members, including herself, Huyett-Kempf said.

Martin joined the board in summer 2004 after his wife heard about Celebrating Patsy Cline. Around the same time of his election to the board, he went to Nashville for the Country Music Association’s Music Festival (formerly called Fan Fair). There, he met with Cline widower Charlie Dick at a Bob Evans restaurant, and the two spoke about Cline’s legacy for three hours straight, Martin said. He told Dick he was interested in “really re-igniting what had been going on in the past.”

Martin hopes to announce an interim home for a Cline museum by the annual Labor Day weekend gathering of Cline fans in Winchester. A spot on or around the Loudoun Street Mall would be ideal for an interim museum measuring anywhere from 5,000 to 7,000 square feet, he said. Martin envisions the interim site operating for at least three years before building a permanent museum.

Celebrating Patsy Cline also needs to raise money to purchase the 608 S. Kent St. home where Cline lived as a teenager, which was once promoted as a possible museum site.

Martin said the home should definitely be affiliated with the museum, but traffic and space concerns make the house an impractical museum.

Realizing these two goals means Celebrating Patsy Cline needs members, money, and exposure.

Students at Vanderbilt University, where Martin received his M.B.A., are working on a new business plan for the nonprofit organization. But Martin said he already knows the plan will include tiered memberships from “friends of the museum” to “hall of fame” levels.

Such memberships will be available at Celebrating Patsy Cline’s booth at this summer’s Country Music Association Music Festival, he said.

Dick has said he’ll appear at the booth, and there is a possibility that Cline friend and fellow singing legend Brenda Lee will serve as a judge in a Celebrating Patsy Cline fund-raising event, Martin said.

Martin, who grew up among country stars, knew Lee when he was younger. He said he’s maintained his music industry connections through the years.

A 1950s or ’60s diner-style restaurant may also be created in Winchester’s downtown, with all the proceeds going toward the museum effort, Martin said.

Growing up outside of the Winchester area could prove a bonus for Martin’s efforts, both he and Huyett-Kempf said.

Huyett-Kempf said he doesn’t have to wade through hometown feelings about Cline, who elicited both positive and negative reactions from city residents throughout her career.

The whole focus is to keep momentum going and get an interim museum in place, because one is long overdue, Martin said.

Huyett-Kempf said she isn’t sure why creating a museum has been so difficult. “Maybe the time hasn’t been right.”

She said she is concerned that if something doesn’t happen this time around, the museum dream will die.

But, Huyett-Kempf added, it looks like Martin may be the man to make sweet dreams come true.

For more information, write to Celebrating Patsy Cline Inc., P.O. Box 3900, Winchester 22604.

A new Web site is being developed by students at Shenandoah University, but in the meantime, people can learn more about Celebrating Patsy Cline by logging on to Celebrating Patsy Cline, Inc. Information.