The date for the much anticipated Donna Fargo highway dedication was announced Monday. The event will happen on Oct. 29 at 11 a.m. in the downtown area.

Last week, Fargo visited Mount Airy on her way to Winston-Salem to receive two awards. She joked with a contingent of visitors at the Robert Smith House saying that it would be “The Happiest Road in the Whole USA.”

Karen Boulding, events coordinator with the N.C. Department of Transportation, met with Fargo last Wednesday about naming N.C. 103 after her. Boulding said this will be second highway in North Carolina to be named after a woman in the 11 years she has been with the DOT.

Fargo spent a couple of days in Mount Airy before heading off to Winston-Salem to receive a couple of awards.

Last Thursday, she was inducted into the North Carolina Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Then, she received the Ernest Tubb award on Saturday at the Western Film Fair at the Clarion Sundance Plaza Hotel.

She said she was thrilled that people from her home state were honoring her.

“We have a lot of good musicians and artists from North Carolina and from this area,” Fargo said.

While she was in Mount Airy, writers and photographers from “Blue Ridge Country” magazine and “Our State” magazine interviewed her for magazine features.

While in town, she said she went to eat at Barney’s on Main Street, Goobers 52 and had lunch at Pandowdy’s on Wednesday. She also got to shop at Scarlett Begonias and the Meadows of Dan Trading Company. Fargo stayed at the Hampton Inn.

“The beds there are the most comfortable beds in the whole USA,” Fargo said with a smile.

Fargo recently donated a number of dresses she wore during memorable appearances. She also donated some awards that will be on permanent display at the Mount Airy Museum of Regional History.

Fargo, a Surry County native, became a country music star 1972 when a song she wrote called “Happiest Girl In The Whole U.S.A” began playing constantly on country, pop, and easy listening radio.

The section of N.C. 103 from Mount Airy north for 5.8 miles in Surry County will be dedicated as the Donna Fargo Highway. An effort to name the highway after Fargo began in February after the Surry County Board of Commissioners adopted a resolution to ask the Department of Transportation to consider naming the highway after the country music singer.

From there, the resolution went to Mount Airy officials who also approved a resolution that was sent on to the DOT, which gave its approval on May 7.

“We are working on coordinating the highway dedication with the moving of the Donna Fargo collection that is presently at the Dr. Robert Smith down to the Mount Airy Museum of Regional History,” Ann Vaughn, executive director of the Gilmer-Smith Foundation, and a friend of Fargo’s, said in May.

In a telephone interview in May, Fargo said the highway dedication means the world to her.

“I’m just really honored that my hometown would honor me in this way. It’s pretty cool,” Fargo said. She resides in Nashville, Tenn., and has been back to Mount Airy a few times in years past. She came back in 2003 to dedicate the Donna Fargo collection at the Robert Smith house and again a few years ago for a book signing at the Main-Oak Emporium.

Fargo’s first hit single was followed by the equally popular “Funny Face.” Both songs reached gold and platinum status in the United States, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, and Donna became the first woman in country music history to have back-to-back million-selling singles. These two singles were from the album The Happiest Girl in the Whole U.S.A, which stayed on the national Billboard charts and other trade charting lists for one year.

Because of consistent radio air play of these records and follow-up hits, such as “Superman,” “You Were Always There,” “Don’t Be Angry,” and “U.S.of A.,” and because of television appearances and extensive press coverage as a result of her record success, her name is familiar to radio listeners, television viewers, and everyone interested in entertainers since the early 1970s.

Her performance on a show at Carnegie Hall interested the Osmond family enough to produce the syndicated television variety show, “The Donna Fargo Show,” which further exposed her name, personality and talent to television viewers during 1978 and 1979. Soon afterwards she became one of the few women ever to release a recitation record (“That Was Yesterday”) and see it hit #1 on radio charts.

In addition to her musical talents, Fargo has a book out called “Trust In Yourself,” a collection of her thoughts in prose and poetry about listening to your heart and becoming the person you want to be.

Her inspirational thoughts are now also available on greeting cards in The Donna Fargo Collection through the Blue Mountain Arts Poets and Artists series. She has just finished another book, planned for release soon.

Contact Mondee Tilley at mtilley@mtairynews.com or at 719-1930.