ALEXANDRIA,Ind. – The public said goodbye to country singer and Indiana native Joey Feek.
“I’m here to tell you that it’s possible to experience the kind of love you see in movies; all you have to do is give that kind of love first,” said Rory Feek, Joey’s husband.
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The memorial service was held in the Alexandria-Monroe High School gymnasium Sunday afternoon. Feek was born and raised in Alexandria. She died earlier this month after a year-long battle with cervical cancer.
“Joey Martin Feek. She’s from Alexandria. She’s such a good soul. We love our Joey,” said Jon Howell, Feek’s high school basketball coach.
Feek left Alexandria when she was 19 to pursue her music career in Nashville, but her family and friends said she never forgot where she came from.
“You believed in her. You never gave up on her. You knew that she had a dream,” said June Martin, Feek’s mother. Authorities said 1,200 people packed into the gymnasium. Those in attendance saw video montages of Joey’s life with her husband Rory, their children and their music.
“I am just an ordinary man that has been given extraordinary love by this woman, and I am forever changed by it,” Rory said. She talked openly and even sang about her diagnosis.
“You know, through it all, these songs have given me such strength; they’ve given me such hope, and they give me something to look forward to,” Joey said in a taped interview with longtime family friend and Christian music icon Bill Gaither.
Feek was buried in Tennessee where she lived with her husband and their three children, including their 2-year-old daughter, named Indiana. “She may have played basketball and volleyball in this gym. And I may be wearing her jacket. but what she lettered in was love,” Rory said.
