Some stars including Robin Roberts and Melissa Etheridge send video messages to celebrate the opening of the exhibition which takes place at Flagg Grove School in Tennessee.
- September 27, 2014
AceShowbiz -
An exhibition featuring Tina Turner's memorabilia opened on Friday, September 26 at an old school where she went to as a child. An opening ceremony for the Tina Turner Museum at Flagg Grove School, located in the West Tennessee Delta Heritage Center in Brownsville, was attended by 100 people including some fans from Europe, The Associated Press reports.
Turner, however, could not make it to the ceremony. The singer, who now lives in Switzerland, said that she could not endure traveling in long distance and sent a video message instead. After thanking people who contributed to the project, she said, "My spirit is with you. Have a wonderful day. Ciao." Robin Roberts (II), Melissa Etheridge, Ann Wilson of rock band Heart, The Beach Boys' Mike Love and The Oak Ridge Boys also recorded videos to commemorate the event.
The museum features gold-and-platinum records as well as the legendary singer's costumes. "Those artifacts, those performances have her blood, sweat and tears woven into the fabric, and now we have brought that fabric back to where it began," Brownsville Mayor Bill Rawls was quoted as saying.
The one-room schoolhouse was built by Benjamin Flagg on his farmland in Nutbush for African-American children in 1889, but it was closed in 1960. The building later was turned into a barn before it was moved by tractor-trailer to Brownsville in 2012. Turner and some other people joined forces to collect $300,000 needed to renovate the building for the museum.
