Garth Brooks, Ricky Skaggs Help Trisha Yearwood Celebrate 20 Years as a Grand Ole Opry Member

Garth Brooks and Ricky Skaggs were just a few of the celebrities on hand on Tuesday, March 12, to help Trisha Yearwood celebrate 20 years as a Grand Ole Opry member. Yearwood, who was inducted on March 13, 1999 by Porter Wagoner, has a hard time believing that two decades have passed since one of her biggest dreams came true.

“It’s never normal, and I hope it never is,” Yearwood told PopCulture.com and other media backstage at the Opry. “My dressing room tonight is the Women of Country Dressing Room, and my picture is on the wall in that room. And it’s hard to wrap your head around it sometimes. I knew if you would have asked me at five years old what I wanted to be when I grew up, I would have said I want to be a singer. I knew. Absolutely. I had no idea that I would also have all this other stuff.”

Yearwood, who was introduced on stage by her good friend, Emmylou Harris, sang “Two Highways” with Ricky Skaggs, followed by a duet of “Whiskey to Wine” with Brooks. She also had video message of congratulations from several artists, including Kelly Clarkson, Reba McEntire, Brenda Lee and Brooks.

Yearwood, who also sang several songs, including “Wrong Side of Memphis” and “She’s In Love With the Boy,” has watched her celebrity status rise in the last several years, especially with her best-selling cookbooks and her Food Network show, Trisha’s Southern Kitchen – unexpected career twists that, in hindsight, make perfect sense.

“I like to cook,” Yearwood explained. “I had no idea that would translate into a whole other career that really seems to complement music nicely because food and music are so interrelated, and they so are about memories and comfort and remembering things that happened in your life and people that you love that have gone on. It’s also intertwined. It makes sense.

“Some dreams I had: I always saw myself sing on the Opry stage because I just believed it, because I didn’t want to do anything else,” she continued. “But if you had asked me 10 years ago, ‘You’re going to have a cooking show?’ I would have said, ‘Are you crazy? Are you okay? Do you need to get some counseling? Are you okay?’ It’s been fun though.”

Yearwood just released her album of Frank Sinatra covers, Let’s Be Frank, and is currently working on a new record of original songs.

Photo Credit: Grand Ole Opry LLC, Chris Hollo