When Reba McEntire made her Grand Ole Opry debut on September 17, 1977, she almost did not make it in the door after a guard at the Opry gate missed her name on the night's list of performers. Her parents and older sister, Alice, drove 1,400 miles round trip from their Oklahoma home to see what turned out to be Reba's three-minute performance that night. Her act was cut from two songs to just one—"Invitation to the Blues"—because of a surprise appearance by Dolly Parton. McEntire was inducted into the Grand Ole Opry on January 17, 1986. "The Grand Ole Opry is a home," she says. "It's a family. It's like a family reunion, when you come back and get to see everybody."