CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- Country music fans who know their history might easily recall the name of Harold "Hawkshaw" Hawkins as one of the people killed with Patsy Cline, Cowboy Copas and the pilot in a March 5, 1963, plane crash.

Yet while Cline's name lives on, Hawkins' career, cut short at age 41, has often been relegated to a footnote linked to Cline's death.

But the tall, amiable Huntington native's country music star will shine again when Hawkshaw Hawkins is inducted into the West Virginia Music Hall of Fame this Saturday at the Cultural Center Theater, along with six other acts.

Hawkins' widow, the country music singer and Grand Ole Opry member Jean Shepard, will accept the award for Hawkins. A couple of sisters who still live in Huntington also will be there to witness this honor for a brother with a nickname his siblings never used.

"We never called him 'Hawkshaw,'" said his sister, Mary Berry. "He was always 'Harold' to us."

The story goes that he earned the nickname as a boy playing marbles with friends. A man walked up and asked if the boys had seen a missing fishing rod. Harold had indeed seen it in a garage down the street, said his sister.

"The man found it and said, 'Here, Hawkshaw!' and flipped him a coin," she said. "'Hawkshaw' was the name of a detective in the funny papers, and that's where the man got the name 'Hawkshaw' - because he'd solved his problem."

The nickname stuck despite pressure once he began performing his smooth-voiced country and honky tonk music. "When he started recording," she said, "they wanted him to change his name, and he said, 'No, I've been called that since I was a little boy, and I'm not gonna change that.'"

Like many performers of his era, Hawkins was self-taught - with a little help from some rabbits and chickens. His father traded the animals for a stringless guitar for Harold, Berry said. "Dad took it and put strings on it and fixed it up and painted it. He just sat and picked on it until he learned himself."

Hawkins won a talent contest at the WSAZ radio station at age 15. He went to WCHS in Charleston by the end of the 1930s, where he often sang with Clarence "Sherlock" Jack in the "Hawkshaw and Sherlock" duo.

CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- Country music fans who know their history might easily recall the name of Harold "Hawkshaw" Hawkins as one of the people killed with Patsy Cline, Cowboy Copas and the pilot in a March 5, 1963, plane crash.

Yet while Cline's name lives on, Hawkins' career, cut short at age 41, has often been relegated to a footnote linked to Cline's death.

But the tall, amiable Huntington native's country music star will shine again when Hawkshaw Hawkins is inducted into the West Virginia Music Hall of Fame this Saturday at the Cultural Center Theater, along with six other acts.

Hawkins' widow, the country music singer and Grand Ole Opry member Jean Shepard, will accept the award for Hawkins. A couple of sisters who still live in Huntington also will be there to witness this honor for a brother with a nickname his siblings never used.

"We never called him 'Hawkshaw,'" said his sister, Mary Berry. "He was always 'Harold' to us."

The story goes that he earned the nickname as a boy playing marbles with friends. A man walked up and asked if the boys had seen a missing fishing rod. Harold had indeed seen it in a garage down the street, said his sister.

"The man found it and said, 'Here, Hawkshaw!' and flipped him a coin," she said. "'Hawkshaw' was the name of a detective in the funny papers, and that's where the man got the name 'Hawkshaw' - because he'd solved his problem."

The nickname stuck despite pressure once he began performing his smooth-voiced country and honky tonk music. "When he started recording," she said, "they wanted him to change his name, and he said, 'No, I've been called that since I was a little boy, and I'm not gonna change that.'"

Like many performers of his era, Hawkins was self-taught - with a little help from some rabbits and chickens. His father traded the animals for a stringless guitar for Harold, Berry said. "Dad took it and put strings on it and fixed it up and painted it. He just sat and picked on it until he learned himself."

Hawkins won a talent contest at the WSAZ radio station at age 15. He went to WCHS in Charleston by the end of the 1930s, where he often sang with Clarence "Sherlock" Jack in the "Hawkshaw and Sherlock" duo.

A horse riding fan, he also performed on horseback, doing rope tricks in a Wild West show before entering the U.S. Army during World War II.

Even as a soldier, he continued to perform, and while stationed in Manila early in the war, appeared on a radio show in the Philippine capital, said Berry.

By 1944, Hawkins was a staff sergeant in the European Theater of Operations, and took part in the Battle of the Bulge in Belgium, winning four battle stars.

After discharge, he scored a minor hit on King Records with "The Sunny Side of the Mountain." He became a top headliner on WWVA's Wheeling Jamboree from 1946-54.

His first hit single came in 1948 with "Pan American," which reached the Top 10. In subsequent years, he had four other Top 10 singles: "Dog House Boogie" (1948), "I Love You a Thousand Ways" (1951), "I'm Waiting Just for You" (1951) and "Slow Poke" (1951).

He joined Nashville's Grand Ole Opry in 1955 and switched to Columbia's roster in 1959, which released his No. 15 single, "Soldier's Joy," later that year. He married Shepard in 1960, and they moved to a farm outside Nashville, where he bred horses.

Hawkins re-signed to the King label in 1963, where he would achieve his only No. 1 hit, "Lonesome 7-7203." He wouldn't live to hear about it. The song appeared on the Billboard charts three days before his death, was absent in the two weeks after his death, then went on to spend 25 weeks on the charts, four of them at the top spot.

Berry still vividly recalls the loss of all that life and music in the crash. "It was a terrible time," she said. "I'll never forget that day."

With the Hall of Fame induction ceremony, she also gets to recall and share all that was special about her fun-loving big brother, even after he'd become a star with a boisterous national fan club. She has all his records still, a plate with his face on it, plus a Prince Albert Tobacco magazine ad depicting her brother smoking a pipe - which he didn't really smoke.

"He was in a lot of magazines. He was pretty popular back in the '40s," she said. "He'd always come home for the holidays. When he got home, it was always our Christmas."

Reach Douglas Imbrogno at doug...@cnpapers.com or 304-348-3017.