HENDERSONVILLE, Tenn. (WKRN) — Hendersonville is known as the City by the Lake, and its scenic views and quiet charm have long attracted some of country music’s biggest names.
“We’ve had everyone from Trisha Yearwood, Kelly Clarkson, Ed Sheeran, Taylor Swift, Barbara Mandrell, Vince Gill — and he still plays at the Opry all the time,” Kendall Sarapas, director of business development with Sumner County Tourism, said.
Those are just a few of the stars who have called Hendersonville home.
“If you see someone famous out and about, it’s not unusual at all,” Sarapas said.
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It’s one of the reasons some tourists make a stop in Hendersonville when they visit Music City.
“We see about 500,000 tourists at Johnny Cash’s gravesite a year,” Sarapas said.
Sarapas leads Johnny Cash tours with Sumner County Tourism, so she knows quite a few interesting facts about the Man in Black.
“We go to Johnny Cash’s house, and I explain about all of his exotic pets — which a couple are still there,” Sarapas said. “…The fun ostrich story about how Johnny Cash almost got killed by an ostrich.”
It’s just one story she often tells about the star during her tours.
“How many albums do you think a normal artist can do in their lifetime?” Sarapas said. “Because he did 97 albums, which is insane.”
It’s also well known that Taylor Swift lived in Hendersonville for some time when she was growing up.
“She went to high school here and she graduated high school here,” Sarapas said. “She filmed [the] ‘You Belong With Me’ music video here in Hendersonville, and her dad still lives here, so you can see him around town.”
News 2 sat down with Sarapas at Kid Kingdom — a park Swift donated to help rebuild Memorial Park after the devastating floods in 2010. Across the street is The Oak Ridge Boys bridge. Members of the quartet still live in Hendersonville today.
“It all started in about the ’60s, so during the ’60s, a lot of people who were living in Nashville felt it was either dangerous or they wanted a little bit of land to be able to go have a farm like Johnny Cash,” Sarapas said.
Sarapas said Hendersonville’s scenic views and quiet charm really draw big name stars.
“It’s a sense of community; people are very private here, and it’s very easy to stay under any radars here,” Sarapas said.
News 2’s Kendall Ashman sat down with two of The Oak Ridge Boys to learn more about their connection to this Sumner County community. You can watch those interviews in full on News 2’s free connected TV app, WKRN+, starting Friday.
‘ The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties ’
‘ Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.wkrn.com ’
