When the Elmont Opry band and singers open their weekend shows by singing “Howdy All You Friends and Neighbors,” they will welcome their audience and bid farewell to one of the show’s founders.
Mildred “Mickey” Lawton, who died Feb. 25 at the age of 94; her husband, Joe, also deceased; and Jim Coder, then pastor of the Elmont United Methodist Church north of Topeka, originated the family-oriented country music revue in the early 1970s to raise money to build a fellowship hall for the church.