The towheaded little girl in the grainy photograph stands behind two of her early idols. Eddy Arnold and Ernest Tubb. Her grin was bigger than Texas then.

She was 12 then...or maybe 13....a country music fan who carried her small Kodak camera down town when she walked from her Hermitage Avenue home to an old theater and to the Ryman Auditorium to hear artist like Eddy Arnold and Ernest Tubb in concert.

She had a dream then. She would grow up and sing Country.On a stage. In a gritty voice . Like Kitty Wells did at the Grand Ole Opry. The little girl grew up . She never sang on a stage in a gritty voice at the Grand Ole Opry.

Wanda Lohman grew up become a waitress. And a legend in her own right. Hardly a day goes by when a tourist or two doesn't stop off at Tootsie's Orchid Lounge in search of the woman they knew as Miss Wanda. Wanda worked at Tootsie's from 1960 to 1984. Miss Wanda tries to be there for her old friends: "It's Home"....she says. And she tries to teach the curious who stop by the bar. "It's History here"...she says.

Miss Wanda 66, was the first cocktail waitress the late Hattie Louise"Tootsie" Bess hired when she opened Tootsie's Orchid Lounge in 1960. Miss Wanda was in her 20's then, married to her second husband and a regular at the lower Broadway Honky Tonk. "I remember Tootsie telling me. Wanda, come to work for me and you won't be at the bar getting drunk". I said "OK". I started out a night or two and then I was there just about all the time, serving up the beer and offering a shoulder to 'em all...Waylon.... Willie.... Faron Young.... George Jones. "It was a insider's job".I knew who Tootsie was feeding free and who she was loanin' money to and who wrote what hit on which napkin. I'd go to the back door {Of the bar} and let in all the Opry greats from the Ryman across the Alley.

"Ive seen 'em all". "I've heard 'em all". People ask me me stories about the Opry then, and I tell 'em, unless my stories would hurt somebody. Miss Wanda tells stories like the time Tootsie fired the house band for a couple of hours.

Willie {Nelson} called. Said he and his band wanted to come over and sing. Tootsie said "Sure". Willie was a favorite. She told the Orchid Loungers they were fired for two hours...and then they were rehired.. Miss Wanda has her own stool at Tootsie's. The other day Wanda was drinking coffee at the bar.Black. brought to her by a waitress named Susan. She wore overalls.Blue. "Used to be", Miss Wanda says, I would wear dress pants, but mostly wore dressy dresses. That's what Tootsie wanted. "I wasn't a groupie" she says. "At least, not like today's groupies". With that Wanda hailed a taxi home.

The waitress named Susan called out to Miss Wanda, "Hurry back". Miss Wanda will. These walls hold history and she's the historian. "Over there"...she say's, giving her last lesson of the day, "that's where Roger Miller wrote DANG ME".

Written By: Sylvia Slaughter