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In a disastrous act of rebellion from her upper crust background, Louanne Bowden began dating and ultimately married Ronnie Raney whom sehe met while attending the University of Mississippi in Oxford (see song, “Louanne in Vicksburg“).

The Raney family under the leadership of matriarch Molly Motts Raney transitioned from bootlegging moonshine whiskey to distributing marijuana, pills and eventually funding methamphetamine labs. Ronnie was the second oldest son, acting as his mother’s right hand operations manager, his older brother Lonnie was sheriff of Warren County, offering protection for the entire enterprise.

After suffering years of Ronnie drunken abuse, Louanne and finding no relief from the corrupt legal system in Warren County, took matters into her own hands and shot Ronnie with a deer rifle as he sat at the kitchen table eating a slice of her homemade peach pie.

Although she knew she was justified in killing him, she fatalistically accepted her conviction of murder and the twenty year sentence that went with it. Only much later was she vindicated and released for time served (see song, “A Waxahachie Funeral“).

lyrics

She’d like to fix up her dinette
Yellow wallpaper with nosegays
A hard wood floor would do the trick
Those stains’ll take more than paint

A buzzer spoils this daydream
Lights out and the bars clang shut
It’ll have to wait twenty years
This cell is where she’ll stay put

She’d had enough
Taken too much
He treated her rough one time too many
She did the crime
She’ll do the time
Regrets? No, she don’t have any

She brought him his beer and a slice of pie
Then shot him with his deer gun
It was worth it just to see him surprised
Once he realized just what she’d done

She’d had enough …

His brother was sheriff of Warren County
There was no doubt the fix was in
A jury of his peers showed no mercy
But if she could she’d do it again

She’d had enough …

© 2017 Frank David Leone, Jr./Highway 80 Music (ASCAP). The songs and stories on the Highway 80 Stories website are works of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
credits

credits

from Mississippi Stories, Vol. 1, released December 1, 2023
Guitar, vocal: David Leone

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Highway 80 Stories Whitleyville, Tennessee

Frank David Leone was born in Shreveport, Louisiana and has lived in the South his entire life with the exception of eight years in NYC.  Leone has also lived and worked at music in Dallas and Nashville.  He currently resides in rural Tennessee with his wife and three cats.
His songs have been recorded by Lee Ann Womack, Chris Knight, Rebecca Lynn Howard, and Joy Lynn White, among others. ... more

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