Blocked

                   	2  ADDR Christian County, Missouri
USA
Christian County, Missouri
USA
	3  ADR1 Christian County, Missouri
	3  ADR2 USA
	3  CITY Christian County
	3  STAE Missouri
	3  CTRY USA


Born in the original farmhouse on Stewart Creek - home of Arthur S and Anna M Burks	1  _TITLE Notes


Sounds Like Ours: Dr. Willie
THOMAS CONNER & JOHN WOOLEY World Entertainment Writers
11/21/2002
Tulsa World (Final Home Edition), Page D4 of Entertainment
WILLIE NELSON performs at the Claremore Civic Center on Nov. 13.
A. CUERVO / Tulsa World
Below: Charlie Daniels performs at the Cain's Ballroom on Nov. 17.
EVAN SEMON / Tulsa World
Country superstar WILLIE NELSON takes time to cheer up a fan
According to her grandson Rance Petty, Opal West is a pretty good singer and guitarist, performing for fun at parties and for family and friends. And if she's got a few more WILLIE NELSON songs in her repertoire these days, who can blame her?
Not that she wasn't already a big Willie fan. As Petty notes, "Earlier this year, WILLIE NELSON came to Muskogee. He's my grandmother's favorite singer of all time, and I got tickets and told her anytime he came close to Tulsa, I'd buy us tickets. So, when I found out he was coming to Claremore, I bought tickets to his show a month in advance."
That concert, of course, was last Tuesday. But the Friday before, West was taken to the hospital with an aortal aneurysm.
"It didn't look good," says Petty.
So, on Monday, he e-mailed the WILLIE NELSON Web site, explaining his grandmother's condition and how much she liked Nelson, adding that it would be wonderful if Willie could contact her in some way.
West was taken to intensive care, but asked her grandson to go to the concert anyway, "to give her a report and get her a WILLIE NELSON headband," he recalls with a chuckle.
The morning after the concert, when he had all but forgotten about the e-mail, his cell phone began to ring.
You probably can guess who was on the other end.
"It was WILLIE NELSON," he says. "He'd just gotten the e-mail and was already out of town, but he wanted me to know that he was thinking about my grandmother, and she was in his prayers."
Nelson also got the number of the hospital where West was being treated. "There's no phone in ICU, so she got WILLIE NELSON's message from the nurse," says Petty. "I was up there when they gave her the message -- her eyes got wide, and she almost fell out of bed. She couldn't believe WILLIE NELSON had called her."
After a week, West was released. She's home now, says Petty, her condition stabilized enough for her to pick up the guitar again.
"She's been singing 'Whiskey River' a lot," says her grandson.
-- J.W.	1  _TITLE W.Nelson