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The body of Travis (Jim) Reeves returned to Panola County Tuesday afternoon just before dusk, to be buried in a site that will become a memorial. The site is a two-acre plot located one-half miles east of Carthage on the south side of U.S. Highway 79 near the Liberty Chapel Baptist Church.Double funeral services were held for the well-known Country Music singer from Panola County and his companion, Dean Manuel at 2 p.m. Tuesday in Nashville, Tennessee.The two men were found dead in the wreckage of a private single engine plane 10 miles south of Nashville. Manuel was Reeves' piano player and road manager and they were returning to their homes in Nashville from a business trip to Batesville, Arkansas.In an interview with Ray Baker, manager for Reeves, he told the Watchman of the accident as near as possible. The plane in which they were flying was rented from a Nashville airport and piloted by Reeves. He frequently flew on business trips and was a good pilot, related Baker. Less than ten minutes from their destination, Reeves radioed to the airport that they were flying in an extremely heavy thunder and rainstorm. The airport control tower later checked with Reeves---asking if he had passed through the storm. The answer was negative. Further attempts were made to contact the Reeves flight by radio---and all proved negative.The plane was reported down at 5 p.m. Friday, July 31. The light aircraft crashed in a wooded area about 100 feet behind a house just off U.S. Highway 31. A Tennessee highway patrolman reported that residents of the house were away at the time of the crash.More than 700 volunteer searchers, Civil Defense workers and police combed a 20-square-mile area for two days. Many of the searchers were Reeves' friends and associates in the country music business. They included guitarist Chet Atkins and singer Eddy Arnold, Stonewall Jackson and Ernest Tubb.Marty Robins, a close friend of Reeves and also an entertainer, lived within a short distance of where the plane crashed and heard the roar of an airplane engine Friday evening and then a loud thud...as if it had plunged into the ground. When he heard of the accident and searching operations, he notified authorities of what he heard and informed them the direction in which he thought the wreckage might be located.The wreckage was located at 1 p.m. Sunday and the engine of the plane was partly buried and it was reported by Tennessee highway patrolmen that it looked as if someone had gone out and dumped some debris and trash. Reeves' body was identified from a driver's license taken from the wreckage.The governor of Tennessee, Frank Clements was a personal friend of Jim Reeves and provided a four-engine U.S. Air Force Strato-Cruiser plane from the National Guard to transport his body, family and associates from Nashville to Shreveport. Hawthorn Funeral Home ambulance transferred the body from Shreveport to Carthage Tuesday evening.Baker said that Reeves had experienced a phenomenal growth in popularity in the United States and Europe during the past ten years. Several polls had recently been taken in England, Holland and other European countries that placed Jim Reeves as the number one favorite singer of country music. The big friendly smile and rich baritone voice of Jim Reeves will be a memory in the hearts of several million people for a long time. Panola County will always cherish his memory as one of her finest gentlemen.

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15y ago
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13y ago

George Reeves died on June 16, 1959 at the age of 45.

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10y ago

James Reeves died in Davidson County, Tennessee. He died in a plane crash, and he was an American country singer.

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10y ago

Jim Reeves was born on August 20, 1923 and died on July 31, 1964. Jim Reeves would have been 40 years old at the time of death or 91 years old today.

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13y ago

Jim Reeves died on July 31, 1964 at the age of 40.

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12y ago

He died of an Air Disaster

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14y ago

Jim Reeves was born on August 20, 1923.

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Q: How old was Jim Reeves at death?
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