Reba Backstage In Plant City
Meeting Reba McEntire is one of those moments you’ll never forget. And as great as it was to meet her for the first time at the Florida Strawberry Festival last night, that wasn’t the moment that I’ll always remember.
As usual with the Strawberry Festival concerts, there’s a small meet and greet about an hour before the concert starts. There are QYK contest winners, fan club members and various Festival staff who line up for a quick hello and photo with the performer. There’s not much time to converse. Sometimes there’s enough time to have something autographed. So it’s rare to see an artist connect in that short amount of time with a fan like one that I saw last night.
I was standing about 50 feet away when this happened so I don’t really know the particulars, but I’m assuming one of the fans who was in line to meet Reba was blind. When she and her service dog approached Reba, she burst into tears when she heard Reba’s voice. It wasn’t long after that that Reba was crying too. The whole interaction was only a few moments, but watching the two of them cry together was just a moment I’ll never forget.
For just about every photo Reba took after that, she had to grab a tissue to touch up before sniffling and smiling for the next picture.
Artists who’ve had that level of success sometimes come off like robots at these meet and greets. It’s not their fault. This all becomes routine to them. But to see someone like Reba stay so genuine after all these years was just something that struck a chord with me.
I was able to have my moment with Reba too… and it was great. But no tears.