It turns out Reba McEntire isn’t the only musical one in the McEntire family. Raised in Oklahoma, McEntire’s mother Jacqueline raised her four children in a musical household, going so far as to form a group called The Singing McEntires that found the children performing at local events. But it was daughter Reba who turned it into a family business.
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In 1975, she moved to Nashville in pursuit of a country music career and signed with PolyGram/Mercury Records that same year. The rest is history, as McEntire is now a country music legend with multiple No. 1 albums, timeless hits like “Fancy,” “Whoever’s in New England,” and “Is There Life Out There,” as well as an illustrious acting career that ranges from her critically-acclaimed Broadway debut in Annie Get Your Gun to a starring role in her TV show, Reba. Her siblings followed in her footsteps, with sister Susie and brother Pake also becoming professional singers. Find out more about her siblings below.
Susie McEntire-Eaton
Raised in a faith-filled household, it’s no surprise that Susie McEntire-Eaton ventured into a career in Christian music. As the youngest child in the McEntire household, she graduated with a degree in personnel management from Oklahoma State University before joining sister Reba on the road as a backup singer, in addition to singing on two of her albums, Heart to Heart and Unlimited in the early 1980s.
“I learned so much in this short period of time – little did I know that this travel time with Reba would help to prepare me for my own solo career in music,” she writes in her website bio. The singer followed her own calling into Christian music in the 1990s, having released more than 10 albums since then, including Real Love in 1993, which reached the Top 40 on the Billboard Top Christian Albums chart. McEntire-Eaton has been inducted into the Oklahoma Music Hall of Fame and the Christian Music Hall of Fame.
Pake McEntire
Like his younger sisters, Pake McEntire also found his purpose in music. Born as Del Stanley McEntire in June 1953, the singer found success in Nashville in the 1980s alongside sister Reba. In 1986, he signed to RCA Records and released his debut album, Too Old to Grow Up Now. It spawned a trio of hit singles, with his debut “Every Night” peaking at No. 20 on the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart, while “Savin’ My Love for You” reached No. 3, and “Bad Love” came in at No. 12 on the chart. McEntire was later dropped from the label and has released several albums independently. He’s also a multi-time rodeo roping champion and father to three daughters Autumn, Calamity, and Chism.
“I tie in rodeoing with music like when I was doing independent albums I would take my tapes around to rodeos when I would compete and just walk through the crowd with a box of tapes and go to selling my tapes just like anyone would sell hot dogs and popcorn,” he explained to UPI in 1986. “It helped me build up some determination and find out how hard it is to convince people that you do have something worth selling. It feels good when people tell you the next time around that they dig the music. In music, if you’ve got a polished show, your luck will be good every time.”
Alice Foran
Though the eldest child of the McEntire family has largely stayed out of the spotlight, Alice Foran has made several appearances throughout sister Reba’s career. Foran didn’t follow her siblings into music, instead opting for a career in social work as the former county director of the Atoka, Oklahoma, Department of Human Services. “Alice is the rock, the one you can call at three in the morning, and she’ll always be ready to help in any way,” Reba praised of her sister in her 1994 memoir, Reba: My Story. As a member of The Singing McEntires growing up, Foran joined her sisters and mother on a cover of “I’ll Fly Away” on Reba’s Grammy-winning debut gospel album, Sing It Now: Songs of Faith & Hope in 2017. The three sisters also appeared on a 2021 episode of the Jesus Calling podcast.
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