Music Friday: Patsy Cline Sings, 'I’ve Got Your Class Ring, But She's Got You'

Welcome to Music Friday when we bring you classic songs with jewelry, gemstones or precious metals in the title or lyrics. Today, Patsy Cline plays the role of a jilted lover who reminisces about a special class ring and other cherished mementos of a relationship gone bad in her 1962 chart-topper, "She's Got You."

She sings, “I’ve got your class ring that proved you cared / And it still looks the same as when you gave it, dear / The only thing different, the only thing new / I’ve got these little things, she’s got you.”

Songwriter Hank Cochran told Cline biographer Ellis Nassour that in 1961 he called the country star and told her he’d just written her next #1 hit. Cline invited Cochran to come over to her house and play the song on guitar.

She immediately fell in love with the song and learned it that same night. Excitedly, she called her producer, Owen Bradley, and sang it to him on the phone. At that point, Cline and Bradley were certain they had a winner — and they did.

Originally a #1 country hit for Cline in 1962, “She’s Got You” has been covered by an all-star group of music artists, including Rosanne Cash, LeAnn Rimes, Timi Yuro, Jimmy Buffet, Lee Ann Womack and Loretta Lynn.

And the song still has legs.

A 17-year-old Emily Ann Roberts sang "She's Got You" on The Voice in September of 2015. The Season 9 finalist's rousing rendition earned accolades from coach Blake Shelton and helped launch her career. “She’s Got You” was so well received by the viewers of The Voice that the song made it into the iTunes Top 10 and ascended to #21 on the U.S. Billboard Hot Country Songs chart.

Born Virginia Patterson Hensley in 1932, Cline is often cited as one of the most influential vocalists of the 20th century and the first country music artist to cross over to pop. Just one year after "She's Got You" was released, Cline tragically died in an airplane crash near Camden, TN. She was 30 years old.

We know you will enjoy the audio track of Cline's performance of “She’s Got You.” The lyrics are below if you’d like to sing along…

“She’s Got You”
Written by Hank Cochran. Performed by Patsy Cline.

I’ve got your picture that you gave to me
And it’s signed with love, just like it used to be
The only thing different, the only thing new
I’ve got your picture, she’s got you

I’ve got the records that we used to share
And they still sound the same as when you were here
The only thing different, the only thing new
I’ve got the records, she’s got you

I’ve got your memory, or has it got me
I really don’t know, but I know it won’t let me be

I’ve got your class ring that proved you cared
And it still looks the same as when you gave it, dear
The only thing different, the only thing new
I’ve got these little things, she’s got you

I’ve got your memory, or has it got me
I really don’t know, but I know it won’t let me be

I’ve got your class ring that proved you cared
And it still looks the same as when you gave it, dear
The only thing different, the only thing new
I’ve got these little things, she’s got you

Credit: Image by Shanecollinswiki, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

Softball Team Finds Diamond Ring Under Tornado Debris, Proposal Ensues

In the aftermath of a terrifying tornado that flattened their home near Hopewell, TX, Dakota Hudson and his girlfriend, Lauren Patterson, were thankful to be alive. They survived the ordeal by taking shelter in their bathroom, holding each other and praying as the twister shook their new home from its foundation.

Once the storm had passed, Hudson told his girlfriend of seven years that he had been planning to propose and that the tornado had consumed the engagement ring that he had hidden in the back closet their now-obliterated house.

"I told her, I was like, 'I lost your engagement ring and your wedding band,' and she told me it was alright," he recounted to local TV station KXII. "All she needed was me."

On Tuesday of last week, the Paris Junior College softball team volunteered to do some salvage and cleanup work for the devastated community and was randomly paired with the young couple.

Hudson hinted to the girls that if they could find the engagement ring, he would proposal on the spot.

"I guess when you tell 20 girls that you’re looking for an engagement ring they’re going to make sure you’re engaged by the end of the day," Hudson told a Fox4 reporter. "They did not let up. They all came out there and they were all workhorses. The amount of work they were able to put in to help us out was phenomenal."

After hours of digging through debris, clues started to emerge. Some of the girls found pieces of the ring box scattered in different areas. Then about an hour later, outfielder Kate Rainey made the discovery of a lifetime.

“I was just kind of digging through the mud in this certain particular spot, and I kept digging there,” Rainey told KXII. “I don’t know why. I felt [that I was] led to dig right there. I found a little piece of a metal circle, and it was not [just] metal. It was gold. I didn’t believe it. When I found it, I was like, ‘there’s no way I just found it.’”

The engagement ring had been torn from its box and traveled seven yards from its original hiding place in the closet. The tornado had buried the ring two inches under ground.

Rainey ran the ring over to Hudson who washed it off with bottled water and then, true to his word, got down on one knee and proposed to Patterson amidst the tangled remains of what used to be their home. Patterson immediately said "Yes" and the couple embraced to the cheers of the Paris Junior College softball team.

“All the glory goes to God,” Hudson told KXII. “I wasn’t going to wait anymore.”

Head coach Shelby Shelton commented on her Facebook page that the proposal was "truly one of the most remarkable things we have witnessed."

"Congrats to the newly engaged couple!," she wrote. "Our girls can’t wait to attend the wedding."

Credits: Team and proposal photos via Shelby Shelton / Facebook. Photo of couple via Lauren Patterson / Facebook.

Serendipity: Couple Mines 10th Anniversary Diamond at Arkansas State Park

In a wonderful example of serendipity, Jessica and Seth Erickson of Chatfield, MN, mined their own 10th anniversary diamond at Arkansas’s Crater of Diamonds State Park.

The couple had recently embarked on an 11-state road trip to celebrate their anniversary milestone and was excited to schedule a stop at the only diamond site in the world that’s open to the general public. The 37½-acre search field at the Murfreesboro park is actually the exposed eroded surface of an ancient diamond-bearing kimberlite pipe and amateur miners get to keep what they find.

The Ericksons arrived at Crater of Diamonds early on a Friday morning and spent the first few hours of their visit collecting material in the north section of the search field. By 11 a.m. they were wet sifting at the North Washing Pavilion with the assistance of some knowledgeable park regulars.

The regulars offered the Minnesota couple tips on how to properly sift their material using two screens — one with a quarter-inch mesh and the second with a 1/16th-inch mesh. The two-stage sifting process washes away the fine dirt and allows the smaller gravel to fall through the first screen and into the second.

According to park staff, about three-fourths of all diamonds registered at the Crater of Diamonds are found by wet sifting.

Although most diamonds are found after flipping gravel from the second screen onto a flat surface, Seth first spotted a metallic-looking gem in the bottom of the first screen. He knew right away it was a diamond and excitedly showed Jessica. Diamond, of course, is the official 10th anniversary gemstone.

According to park officials, it is very unusual to catch a diamond in the top screen of a screen set. The mesh size of the top screen is typically used to catch and remove bigger pieces of gravel – not diamonds. The average diamond size found wet sifting is a quarter of a carat. Typically, larger diamonds are found by surface searching.

The Ericksons placed their tea-color gem in a clear vial and walked it to the park’s Diamond Discovery Center, where park staff registered it as a 1.90-carat brown diamond about the size of a pony bead, a glass or plastic bead often used in children's crafts.

Many people who find diamonds at Crater of Diamonds State Park choose to name their gems. The Ericksons called their gem "HIMO," derived from the initials of each of their children.

So far this year, 581 diamonds have been registered at Crater of Diamonds State Park. An average of one to two diamonds are found by park visitors each day. Since the Crater of Diamonds opened as an Arkansas State Park in 1972, visitors have found more than 33,000 diamonds.

Credits: Photos courtesy of Crater of Diamonds State Park.