Hometown Rankin - February & March 2016

On December 19th, the Mississippi
Country Music Trail unveiled a trail
marker honoring Faith Hill at the
corner of Main and Mangum
Streets in Star, Mississippi.
As a young girl growing up in Star, Faith
found her passion for music and singing and
followed her heart to Nashville at the young age
of 19. She has now been a force of nature in the
entertainment industry for over two decades,
having achieved unprecedented success in the
worlds of country and pop music as one of the
top-selling and most-awarded female artists of
all time. Over the course of her career, she has
had fourteen #1 singles and multiple albums
topping both the Billboard Top 100 and
Country charts, with six multi- platinum studio
albums and selling more than 30 million albums
worldwide. She’s won five Grammy Awards,
twelve ACM Awards, four Billboard Music
Awards, four American
Music Awards, four
People’s Choice Awards
and three CMA Awards.
We had the chance
to ask Faith, and her
close-knit family, a few
questions and got a
peek of what it was
like for her growing
up in Star.
What is your favorite memory of growing up
in Star/Rankin County?
One of my fondest memories of growing up in Star was the
winter that Highway 49 froze over completely from a big
northeastern storm that fell down into the deep south in
the early ‘80s. Highway 49 and everything else was closed.
This is the day that Gaye McCann, now Gaye Knight, and
I would become best friends. We played all day on the
highway…sliding, falling, running, laughing, sliding, falling,
and laughing again and again.
What is the one thing you miss the most about
living in a small town?
Life in a small town is something everyone should have the
opportunity to experience at least once in a lifetime. Dreams
seem bigger when you come from a small town; although,
somehow they seem more obtainable because either you have
the support of friends and family, which gives you strength to
work hard and be successful or you have so much drive to get
out of the small town that it motivates you to work even harder.
I miss my family and I miss knowing every road and where
each one leads. There is power in that knowledge; the power
of knowing where you are going, as well as the power that
comes from the drive to get out of something so familiar and
discover what the world has to offer.
Is there a favorite tradition that you and your
family had growing up that has been carried
over to your family?
There are many things that I have
carried over to my family. Lots of
traditions–and most all of them are
related to food and faith. My
parents had the most incredible
vegetable garden. My brothers
and I had the chore of weeding,
shelling peas, butter beans–whatever
was required. I absolutely
hated it when I was growing up
and usually found an excuse to
not always be home when I
needed to help.
Hometown Rankin • 23