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Vaughn pursued songwriting just out of college and was hired by the Wilburn Brothers, who signed her immediately to write for their publishing company, Sure-Fire Music. They loved her lyrics but not her melodies, and paired her with a young singer-songwriter charting at that time with Honky Tonk Girl, Loretta Lynn. It was the beginning of a friendship and songwriting partnership that endured through the years. Vaughn was co-writer of the Grammy-nominated song \u201cI Miss Being Mrs.Tonight.\u201d According to The Wilburn Brothers\u2019 Facebook page, Vaughn is also credited with \u201cNeon Lights\u201d (with Teddy Wilburn), \u201cBartender\u201d (with Loretta Lynn), and \u201cI\u2019ll Sure Come A Long Way Down\u201d (with Loretta Lynn).\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Vaughn soon discovered the journey of a song in Nashville from the pen to the radio stations was long and slow, so she returned to Mississippi in search of a new career. Vaughn said she found it as the first female ad salesperson in Mississippi at the Daily Herald in Gulfport. Vaughn later accepted a sales position with Nashville\u2019s Newspaper Printing Corporation, owned by the Tennessean and Nashville Banner, where she worked for 17 years. But her heart was in Bell Buckle, a small town that spoke to her when she was a little girl visiting with her aunt to buy fabric at the mercantile. From that moment on, Vaughn said Bell Buckle stuck in her mind. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cOn a trip to Bell Buckle to go junking, I said to my friend, \u2018Winfred, this is where I\u2019m supposed to be in life. It\u2019s calling to me. And I know now why it\u2019s calling to me. This is where I\u2019m supposed to live.\u2019 I quit my job, went back, and gave my two weeks\u2019 notice.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Friends and family weren\u2019t as convinced as Vaughn that it was the right move, but she was undeterred. And today, from her Bell Buckle studio, Vaughn puts our thoughts and memories into poems in a language that we feel is as much ours as Vaughn\u2019s. We connect with her words so deeply that she was appointed the Poet Laureate of Tennessee in 1995, one of the longest-standing poet laureates in U.S. history. <\/p>\n\n\n\n As poet laureate, Vaughn has written the inaugural poems for four governors, the Tennessee quarter poem, Tennessee women\u2019s suffrage poem, the Grand Ole Opry\u2019s 100th-anniversary poem, and the Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College 100th anniversary poem. The bicentennial poem, \u201cWho We Are,\u201d which hangs in the state capitol and many other places throughout our state, was designated as the official Tennessee state poem. Vaughn\u2019s 50th anniversary commemorative poem for the U.S. Air Force was read into the Congressional Record of Washington, D.C.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n Vaughn is the first poet to be awarded the Mark Twain Fellowship in Elmira, New York. In 2007, she was awarded the Arts and Humanities Award for achieving a notable and distinguished career in the Mid-South by the Germantown Arts Alliance. This award\u2019s previous recipients include William Faulkner, Eudora Welty, Alex Haley, and many other distinguished writers. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Vaughn, a member of the Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College Hall of Fame, has now released over 20 self-published books through her publishing company, Bell Buckle Press. Her most requested poem, she said, remains \u201cIs That You, Mama?\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n Whether it\u2019s the official poems written for the state of Tennessee or a poem about quilts, the old school desk, or the front porch, Vaughn is the voice of the rural South. Penning the lines is as natural as speaking or breathing, and her success is no secret to her. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe reason I get so much response from people is that I got my voice from country music,\u201d Vaughn said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Keep speaking, Ms. Maggi! GN <\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Tennessee Poet Laureate Margaret Britton Vaughn has written four inaugural poems and the Grand Ole Opry\u2019s 100th-anniversary poem.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":11833,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[26],"class_list":["post-11828","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-feature","tag-february"],"yoast_head":"\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/goodnewsmags.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/02\/DSC_8574-1-1024x683.jpg\")