With two performances remaining before shutting the doors for good, the Oaklawn Opry is going out in fine style.
After a 25-year run, the venue for high-caliber, local musicians and singers is bidding farewell on Feb. 11, one week from tonight. Tonight's and next Saturday's shows begin at 7 p.m.
After those two performances, the spotlight will shine no more and the stage will fall eerily silent and empty.
It's quite sad to see such a mainstay in Texarkana's entertainment landscape disappear.
I attended last week's show and was quite captivated and moved by the level of talent and dedication that has kept those doors open for a quarter century. I also regretted having not frequented the place more often during its long run.
It's a wonderful slice of Texarkana history and helps to keep the music of well-loved country music legends performed and passed down generation to generation.
Think 1966 Loretta Lynn hit "You Ain't Woman Enough to Take My Man," performed last week by Jessica Akin, who is in her late 30s; Bobby Bare's 1974 hit "Marie Laveau," performed by Laura Tatum, who owns an opry in Oklahoma but travelled five hours to make her final appearance at Oaklawn; and George Jones' 1985 "Who's Gonna Fill Their Shoes," performed by Jake Akin, who has only been out of high school for a couple of years.
With their voices and talent, these and fellow performers Gage Baird, Daniel Foster and Klancy Johnson made last Saturday night magical for Oaklawn Opry attendees.
Most of these performers have longtime ties with the Oaklawn Opry, literally growing up and coming of age, musically speaking, on its stage. It feels like home to them.
"I've been performing here since I was 16," Jake Akin told me during intermission. Despite his beard, his face was that of a young man.
"How many years has that been, if you don't mind my asking?" I said politely.
"I'm 20," he said, continuing to beam through the conversation.
It was evident he was on a musical high, spirits soaring.
Jessica Akin (no relation to Jake) made her Oaklawn debut performance at the ripe old age of 16 as well, though for her that was back in the late 1990s. The two even performed their first duet during Saturday's show.
Johnson, another Opry favorite who came of age on that state and who will be performing at the 25th anniversary show, sang a Tammy Wynette song and a Linda Ronstadt song last Saturday night.
The whole ensemble-from the weekly line-up of peformers to the house band to the woman who sells tickets to the sound board and spotlight operaters and concession stand attendants-are all family in a sense.
You can see it, feel it.
With no alcohol or smoking at the theater, it's good, clean wholesome fun. Any discord or turmoil we deal with daily can be washed away by harmonies, fiddles and steel guitars on Saturday evenings.
It's a journey paying homage to music's simpler and grander times.
Jake Akin opened his set with David Allan Coe's "The Ride," a song about an aspiring musician bumming a ghostly ride in Hank Williams' Cadillac.
The strong spirits and solid performers continued through the night.
Daniel Foster hearkened the audience back to Johnny Cash's "Folsom Prison Blues" and Johnny Horton's classic, "Battle of New Orleans."
As Foster, Tatum, the unrelated Akins and Baird departed the Opry stage after their final performance, hugs were exchanged with a backup singer and tear-filled glances were exchanged with the band.
Gage Baird's last song on the Oaklawn Opry stage was John Anderson's "Seminole Wind," an ode to the wonders the Seminole Indians lost through "progress" and flood control in the Florida Everglades.
It's not necessarily "progress" in the case of the Oaklawn Opry that will soon make this musical experience a fond memory.
Instead, it's a combination of factors. It's an aging audience and crew, a decline in interest and attendance and an onslaught of new entertainment and communication options.
Auto-Tune dominates the mainstream scene these days, leaving those of us who remember classic country music yearning for it. The Opry, and places like the Maytag Opry, more than fill that void.
The kind of music I was raised on fills that room and lifts the hearts and souls of those performing it and those hearing it.
Thank you, Oaklawn Opry musicians, performers and staff. You, like the venue, have been a treasure to this community.