Barbara Mandrell is getting the 2026 Kennedy Center Honors on December 7 at Capital One Arena in Washington, D.C. The milestone: she’s the second consecutive country artist in the honors class, following George Strait in 2025, the first time country has earned back-to-back recognition in the program’s history.
The road there was long. The Honors launched in 1978 with a classical-heavy first class and didn’t honor a country artist until Roy Acuff in 1991, 14 years in, mirroring its slow embrace of blues, R&B, folk, rock, Latin and rap. Mandrell, 77, a 2009 Country Music Hall of Fame inductee with four CMA Awards, joins a country roster that includes Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson, Loretta Lynn, Dolly Parton, George Jones, Merle Haggard, Reba McEntire and Garth Brooks. Garth is the youngest country honoree at 58 in 2020; Dolly was the youngest woman at 60 in 2006, and George Strait holds the most CMA Awards among honorees with 17.
Mandrell also gave country one of its all-time lines, the 1981 duet with George Jones on“I Was Country When Country Wasn’t Cool,”and now she’s part of the genre’s Kennedy Center scorecard. Who do you think should be the next country honoree? Let us know.
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Local Lawton
Local Lawton is a contributor to LocalBeat, covering local news and community stories.