Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: FRIDAY, January 28, 1994                   TAG: 9401280124
SECTION: EXTRA                    PAGE: 9   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

PEOPLE

Finalists for the 28th annual awards were picked by readers of Music City News, a country music publication. Fans will pick the winners, too, for presentation June 6 on cable television's The Nashville Network.

And Garth Brooks? Country music's top seller received just one nomination: entertainer of the year.

Brooks, Gill, Jackson, McEntire and George Strait also are competing for entertainer of the year.

McEntire, Lorrie Morgan, Tanya Tucker, Wynonna Judd and Trisha Yearwood were nominated for female artist of the year.

For male artist, Billy Ray Cyrus, Gill, Jackson, Ricky Van Shelton and Strait were the finalists.

Sharon Stone is pained, yet enlightened, by the tag of home wrecker.

In the Sunday issue of Parade magazine, the actress responds to that accusation by Naomi MacDonald, the wife of her fiance, movie producer Bill MacDonald.

"I never went on a date with Bill," Stone said. "We talked on the phone. I told him he'd have to change his life if he wanted to see me. Which he did."

The MacDonald marriage is being annulled, she said. Stone said she and MacDonald are living together.

"But it was a bizarre episode. To have my life turned into a media event, to be painted to look like something I'm not, was very hurtful," Stone said.

"Yet, in a strange way, it was like a spiritual renaissance for me, because I've had to really grow as a person not to come out of this bitter and scarred."

Black gospel music is getting its due as more than 200 singers gather for what Jessy Dixon calls "a miracle."

"You've got some of the greatest gospel artists in the world in this building," she said. "For them all to say, `Yes, I'll do this' and come and perform is awesome."

Dixon and the other singers will record more than 60 songs, blending races, denominations and generations for a documentary on the history of gospel music.

The recording is being done in the Alexandria, Ind., studios of gospel singer Bill Gaither, who paid for transportation, lodging and food for the performers.