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Ramona Reed grew up on a farm near Talihina, Oklahoma, where her musical talent emerged almost as soon as she could walk. Inspired by her father’s singing and yodeling, she was performing publicly by age fifteen on a Saturday morning radio show in McAlester, Oklahoma.

By seventeen, she made her debut on the Grand Ole Opry, performing “I Want to Be a Cowboy’s Sweetheart” on the Noontime Neighbor Show at WSM before joining the Opry as “Martha White,” the on-air representative for Martha White Flour. She shared dressing rooms with Minnie Pearl and shared the stage with legends like Hank Williams Sr., Roy Acuff, and Ernest Tubb.

After two years in Nashville, Ramona joined Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys, touring across the country and performing countless times at Cain’s Ballroom in Tulsa. Wills admired her talent, famously telling her she was “just what he was looking for.” Ramona recorded several songs with the Playboys, including “I’m Tired of Living This Lie” and “Little Girl, Little Girl,” both released on MGM Records.

Her voice carried her far beyond Oklahoma. She appeared on Ted Mack’s Original Amateur Hour, performed in Hollywood, and even yodeled at the Oklahoma State Capitol. In later years, she collaborated on gospel projects with surviving Texas Playboys and continued to sing into her nineties, often stepping outside her home in rural Clayton, Oklahoma, to sing to the open air.

In 2009, Ramona was inducted into the Oklahoma Music Hall of Fame, alongside Carrie Underwood and Rocky Frisco. In 2020, the Grand Ole Opry honored her with a birthday tribute celebrating the 70th anniversary of her debut at age seventeen. Her story, filled with faith, humor, and resilience, captures a golden age of country music and a life devoted to song.

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