Patsi Bale Cox

Capitol Nashville Records; Journalist; New York Times bestselling author

A native of Sublette, Kansas, Patsi Bale Cox was a New York Times bestselling author, journalist and music industry executive. The youngest of five daughters, she received both her bachelors and masters degrees from Fort Hays State University. She later was awarded the University's Alumni Achievement Award. Following her graduation from college in 1968, Patsi began writing features for Plaza Magazine in Kansas City. In 1974, after three years in Germany, Patsi co-founded the Denver-based magazine, Colorado Woman, serving as editor and publisher of the women's rights advocacy publication. She left the magazine in 1980 to focus on writing about the music industry, and moved to Nashville three years later. Over the next 30 years, she was a journalist, lyricist, biographer, publicist and marketing strategist. She worked for virtually every major record label, dozens of publishing companies and PR agencies.

She scored an 8-week Gospel Voice chart topper as a co-writer on Donna Fargo's "Mighty Shield of Armor," but spent the last years of her career focusing on co-authoring autobiographies for music and entertainment industry greats. These included the New York Times bestsellers Nickel Dreams with Tanya Tucker, The View from Nashville with Ralph Emery, Still Woman Enough with Loretta Lynn, and Coming Home to Myself with Wynonna Judd. In 2009, Patsi released her Music Row insider opus on the career that catapulted the Nashville music industry in the 1990s, The Garth Factor: The Career Behind Country's Big Boom. She was working on a memoir with Kenny Rogers at the time of her death in 2011.