![\"tammywynette03\"](\"http:\/\/whisnews21.files.wordpress.com\/2012\/03\/tammywynette031.jpg\")
<\/b><\/p>\n<\/b><\/p>\nTammy Wynette’s daughters seek support to put singer’s name back on her crypt<\/b><\/h3>\n
Written by Tom Wilemon<\/strong><\/p>\n A public campaign has begun to push for\u00a0Tammy Wynette\u2019s name to be restored on her burial crypt two years after it was replaced with her married name, Virginia W. Richardson.<\/p>\n \u201cShe worked very hard and long her whole life for that name,\u201d Lennon said. \u201cThat\u2019s who she believed she was. That is who she was.\u201d<\/p>\n The sisters are talking to an attorney about obtaining a court order to bring back the Tammy Wynette name, she said, with the hopes that public support will strengthen their case. They\u2019ve had no luck in the past pursuing legal rights to their mother\u2019s legacy or family heirlooms, such as their grandmother\u2019s butter churn or their own baby pictures, Lennon said.<\/p>\n Wynette\u2019s husband, George Richardson, who went by the professional name of George Richey, was given their mother\u2019s home and belongings as well as the rights to her publishing and business enterprises after her 1998 death. Lennon said her mother had shown them a handwritten list specifying who would get what personal items, but Richey told estate lawyers he could not find it.<\/p>\n They and Richey\u2019s children expected to have the intellectual property passed on to them but learned that those rights were sold to a music publishing company shortly before his death in 2010.<\/p>\n The Bicycle Music Co. and its affiliate, the AF Circle C. Fund, announced in a Feb. 19, 2010, press release \u201cthe acquisition of a significant interest in the Tammy Wynette music catalog, name and likeness rights as well as the trademarks, \u2018Tammy Wynette,\u2019 \u2018First Lady of Country Music\u2019 and \u2018Stand By Your Man.\u2019 \u201d<\/p>\n Family friction<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n Lennon, who is the only child from Wynette\u2019s marriage to George Jones, said she and her sisters had thought the temporary name change would be to their mother\u2019s maiden name, Virginia Wynette Pugh.<\/p>\n Lennon and her sister, Jackie Daly, have written books highly critical of George Richey, blaming him for being manipulative of their mother, pushing her to perform on stage when she was sick and enabling her addiction to pain medicine.<\/p>\n The legal challenge to rights to their mother\u2019s property never occurred.<\/p>\n \u201cThe more we looked into it, the more we realized there were plenty of attorneys who would take the case if we could pay them $50,000 to $100,000 up front to pay for their expenses along the way,\u201d Lennon said. \u201cNo one was willing to take it on a contingency based on the fact that they found a clause in Mom\u2019s will that said if for some reason Richey becomes elderly and sick and needs some money at some point to care for himself \u2014 that if he has no other way to pay for his expenses and care \u2014 at that point, he would be able to sell whatever he needed.\u201d<\/p>\n Lennon said she doubts that Richey was ever that destitute.<\/p>\n Instead of mounting a legal challenge to the sale of Wynette\u2019s catalog and trademarks, Hale wound up being a defendant in a defamation lawsuit filed by Richey\u2019s widow, Sheila Richey.<\/p>\n George Richey, who had been interred in the crypt above Wynette, has since been moved, Lennon said<\/p>\n Reach Tom Wilemon at 615-726-5961<\/span>![\"tammywynette04\"](\"http:\/\/whisnews21.files.wordpress.com\/2014\/03\/tammywynette04.png?w=226\")
Georgette Jones Lennon said she and Wynette\u2019s three other daughters are asking for public support as they try to rectify a mistake. They agreed to a name change after being told it would be temporary, she said, but now they cannot reverse the decision because they don\u2019t own the burial crypt at Woodlawn Memorial Park. Lennon is asking her mother\u2019s fans to join a Facebook page called \u201cA Restoration\u201d Tammy Wynette\u2019s Name and Legacy.<\/p>\n![\"tammywynette01\"](\"http:\/\/whisnews21.files.wordpress.com\/2012\/03\/tammywynette01.jpg\")
One of Richey\u2019s children, Deirdre Richardson Hale, who is a lawyer, persuaded them to change the name on the crypt temporarily for legal reasons during a planned challenge to the sale of the intellectual property, Lennon said. Attempts by The Tennessean to contact Hale, whom Lennon said owns the crypt, were unsuccessful.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"\/\/skype_ff_extension-at-jetpack\/skype_ff_extension\/data\/call_skype_logo.png\"){kind=logo}
615-726-5961<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span> and on Twitter @TomWilemon.<\/b><\/p>\n