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Before Toby Keith built OK Kids Korral, a grieving mother told him what it meant to arrive at a hospital with nothing—and find that someone had thought of what she would need. Her two-year-old daughter, the child of one of Toby’s bandmates, had been diagnosed with a tumor. Toby helped connect the family with St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. Doctors could not save her, but her mother never forgot the support she received: a room, meals at any hour, and gift cards for necessities, all without a bill. Toby wanted families in Oklahoma to have that kind of help. His foundation began supporting children with cancer in 2006. On January 7, 2014, it opened OK Kids Korral near the children’s hospital in Oklahoma City, offering free accommodation to families whose children were undergoing treatment. He described the place as “Ritz Carlton meets Disney World.” His golf classic raised more than $15 million to support it, and the Korral grew to welcome about 300 families each year. When Toby received his own stomach cancer diagnosis in 2021, he later said one of his early concerns was who would look after the Korral. He died in February 2024, at 62, having called it the best gift he ever gave the world. The idea had stayed with him because of one family’s experience. Years later, other parents could bring their children to Oklahoma City for treatment knowing that a place to stay—and help through the days ahead—was waiting for them.

Long before he had a record deal, Toby Keith had a  guitar player who stuck with him. That man later became his road manager, got married and had two children. When one of them, a 2-year-old girl named Allison, was diagnosed with a tumor, Toby did what a man in his position could do. He picked up the phone.

For years, Toby had been giving his time and money to St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. He called in a favor, and St. Jude took the little girl in. The doctors fought for her, but they could not save her.

What stayed with Toby was something Allison’s mother told him afterward. She had arrived at St. Jude with nothing, and the hospital simply took care of her. Toby later repeated what they told her:

“Here’s your room, here’s some Walmart cards, here’s some food 24/7.”

They never charged her a penny. Toby never forgot it.

“I can’t cure cancer”

Toby was honest about what one  country singer could and couldn’t do. “I can’t cure cancer,” he told the Oklahoma Gazette. What he could do was make sure other mothers felt what Allison’s mother felt when she walked into St. Jude: taken care of, at the worst moment of her life.

His daughter, singer Krystal Keith, has said the idea took shape at Allison’s funeral. That was where her father decided to start a foundation in the little girl’s honor.

From a promise to a building

The Toby Keith Foundation began helping children with cancer in 2006. In its early years it worked with Ally’s House, named for Allison. By 2010 that program could stand on its own, and the foundation turned all of its attention to one goal. Oklahoma City had nothing like St. Jude, and Toby wanted to change that.To pay for it, he leaned on the game he loved. His Toby Keith & Friends Golf Classic, held every year back home in Oklahoma, grew into one of the state’s biggest fundraisers. Over two decades it raised more than $15 million for the project.

“Ritz Carlton meets Disney World”

In late 2013, Toby, his family and his supporters celebrated the grand opening of the $9 million OK Kids Korral. The doors opened to families on January 7, 2014. It sits near the Children’s Hospital at OU Medical Center, so parents can stay close while their child goes through treatment, and it costs them nothing.

Inside are a movie theater, a playground, a meditation and prayer room and a gourmet kitchen. Volunteers cook dinners for the families. Staff drive them to and from the hospital. Toby’s own description was simple: “It’s Ritz Carlton meets Disney World.”

Oklahoma is a rural state, and many families drive a long way for treatment. Guests have come from Arkansas, Texas, Kansas and even other countries. In its first year alone, the Korral hosted more than 400 family stays, some for one night, some for months. By his final years, Toby said it was serving about 300 families a year.

He didn’t keep his distance from them. At the Korral’s first family reunion in January 2015, Toby went around and talked with every family and volunteer himself. He admitted the work had its hard days. Children who finish treatment get to ring a bell at the hospital, but not all of them make it, and he said getting close to those kids and losing them was heartbreaking.

When cancer came for him

In 2021, Toby was diagnosed with stomach cancer. He later told Oklahoma City reporter Robin Marsh that his mind went to the Korral almost right away:

“Who’s gonna take care of the Korral? Who will carry that torch?”

He kept showing up anyway. In June 2023, still fighting the disease, he hosted the live auction at his golf classic and talked about the year ahead: ten years of the Korral and twenty years of his foundation, and he wanted a big celebration for both.The Korral reached its 10th anniversary in January 2024. A few weeks later, on February 5, 2024, Toby Keith died at 62. In one of his last interviews, he called the Korral the best gift he had ever given the world.

It started with a little girl named Allison and a mother who arrived at a hospital with nothing. Toby spent the last 18 years of his life making sure families in Oklahoma would never have to arrive that way again.

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Alan Jackson spent ten years living with Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease before explaining publicly why he was having trouble keeping his balance onstage. By the end of his touring career, he was using his farewell to help fund research into the condition. Diagnosed in 2011, Jackson had inherited the degenerative nerve disorder from his father, Eugene. His grandmother and older sister were also affected. As it weakened his lower legs and feet, moving around during concerts became more difficult. He disclosed the diagnosis on *Today* in September 2021, concerned that audiences might mistake his unsteadiness for drinking. He continued performing, launching *Last Call: One More for the Road* in 2022. The arena tour concluded in Milwaukee in May 2025. Along the way, he adapted: singing from a tall stool or using the microphone stand for support. Even as his fingers became less nimble, he kept signing cowboy hats and tossing them to fans near the stage. On June 27, 2026, more than 50,000 people gathered at Nashville’s Nissan Stadium for his final full-length concert. Jackson was 67. Luke Combs, Eric Church, Miranda Lambert, Carrie Underwood, Keith Urban, Luke Bryan, Jon Pardi and Lee Ann Womack joined the celebration. The evening also supported the CMT Research Foundation. One dollar from each ticket went toward its work, with anonymous donors contributing another two dollars per seat. After decades of touring and 35 No. 1 country hits, Jackson stepped away from full-length concerts to spend more time in Tennessee with Denise, their three daughters and their grandchildren. His last stadium audience had helped support research into the disease that made leaving the road necessary. More below follows the final *Last Call* tour and the Nissan Stadium celebration, alongside one of Jackson’s classic performances.

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Waylon Jennings arrived at the Ryman Auditorium in a wheelchair on July 3, 2001, to say goodbye to Chet Atkins. Diabetes had made walking difficult, but he had returned from Arizona to honor the producer who signed him—and with whom he had so often argued. Atkins brought Waylon to RCA in 1965 and produced his early hits. Their disagreements grew from the records themselves. Chet favored Nashville’s established session musicians; Waylon wanted to record with his own band and follow the sound he heard onstage. In 1972, Waylon secured creative control. The following year, he made *Honky Tonk Heroes* without Atkins. Nearly three decades later, those battles remained part of the friendship he remembered outside Chet’s funeral. Listed among the honorary pallbearers, Waylon called him a genius. He recalled arguments that left them furious with each other, followed by sessions that produced records he was proud of. He also told a local television reporter about an earlier moment, when he was new in Nashville. Faced with someone in the studio who doubted him, Chet had announced that he had found himself a star. Waylon and Jessi Colter had already sold their Nashville home and moved to Arizona. His health was deteriorating, and five months after the funeral, doctors amputated his left foot. He died at home on February 13, 2002, a little over seven months after Chet’s service. On that final visit to the Ryman, he had remembered both the man who challenged his musical choices and the man who believed in him before the hits arrived.

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Jerry Reed filled “Amos Moses” with things listeners weren’t supposed to believe. The one-armed poacher, the father who used his son as alligator bait, the sheriff who vanished in the swamp—all belonged to a tall tale. The law pursuing Amos, however, had a real reason to be there. When the record arrived in October 1970, alligator hunting was illegal in Louisiana. Reed had set his story roughly 45 minutes southeast of Thibodaux. Louisiana had closed its alligator season in 1962 after a steep population decline, and the ban remained in place. A limited legal hunt would not return until September 1972, when 59 hunters were permitted to participate in a single parish. The storyteller himself came from Georgia. Born in Atlanta in 1937, Reed spent seven childhood years in foster homes and orphanages and taught himself to thumb-pick guitar on a porch in a cotton mill village. By 1970, he was an established Nashville session musician, and Elvis Presley had recorded his songs. “Amos Moses” gave Reed a character as distinctive as his guitar playing. Country radio took the single to No. 16, while its bigger audience came through pop: it reached No. 8 on the Billboard Hot 100 in early 1971 and sold a million copies. No documented real-life Amos has emerged behind the story. Reed nevertheless kept the fictional poacher close. In 2005, when asked to choose three songs he could sing for the rest of his life, he named “Amos Moses” first.

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Waylon Jennings arrived at the Ryman Auditorium in a wheelchair on July 3, 2001, to say goodbye to Chet Atkins. Diabetes had made walking difficult, but he had returned from Arizona to honor the producer who signed him—and with whom he had so often argued. Atkins brought Waylon to RCA in 1965 and produced his early hits. Their disagreements grew from the records themselves. Chet favored Nashville’s established session musicians; Waylon wanted to record with his own band and follow the sound he heard onstage. In 1972, Waylon secured creative control. The following year, he made *Honky Tonk Heroes* without Atkins. Nearly three decades later, those battles remained part of the friendship he remembered outside Chet’s funeral. Listed among the honorary pallbearers, Waylon called him a genius. He recalled arguments that left them furious with each other, followed by sessions that produced records he was proud of. He also told a local television reporter about an earlier moment, when he was new in Nashville. Faced with someone in the studio who doubted him, Chet had announced that he had found himself a star. Waylon and Jessi Colter had already sold their Nashville home and moved to Arizona. His health was deteriorating, and five months after the funeral, doctors amputated his left foot. He died at home on February 13, 2002, a little over seven months after Chet’s service. On that final visit to the Ryman, he had remembered both the man who challenged his musical choices and the man who believed in him before the hits arrived.

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Before Toby Keith built OK Kids Korral, a grieving mother told him what it meant to arrive at a hospital with nothing—and find that someone had thought of what she would need. Her two-year-old daughter, the child of one of Toby’s bandmates, had been diagnosed with a tumor. Toby helped connect the family with St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. Doctors could not save her, but her mother never forgot the support she received: a room, meals at any hour, and gift cards for necessities, all without a bill. Toby wanted families in Oklahoma to have that kind of help. His foundation began supporting children with cancer in 2006. On January 7, 2014, it opened OK Kids Korral near the children’s hospital in Oklahoma City, offering free accommodation to families whose children were undergoing treatment. He described the place as “Ritz Carlton meets Disney World.” His golf classic raised more than $15 million to support it, and the Korral grew to welcome about 300 families each year. When Toby received his own stomach cancer diagnosis in 2021, he later said one of his early concerns was who would look after the Korral. He died in February 2024, at 62, having called it the best gift he ever gave the world. The idea had stayed with him because of one family’s experience. Years later, other parents could bring their children to Oklahoma City for treatment knowing that a place to stay—and help through the days ahead—was waiting for them.