Donna Stoneman
Donna Laverne Stoneman (February 7, 1934 – June 28, 2026) was a mandolinist and singer, and a member of the Stoneman Family. She was one of the fifteen children of Ernest V. "Pop" Stoneman and Hattie Frost Stoneman who lived to adulthood, and she grew up in the Washington, D.C., area. She started playing mandolin at eight and was working full time as a musician by sixteen. In the mid-1950s she formed the Blue Grass Champs with her brothers Scotty and Jimmy Stoneman, and the band won Arthur Godfrey's Talent Scouts in 1956. She was known for dancing across the stage while she played her solos. She and her sister Roni Stoneman led the family act in Washington-area clubs from the late 1950s into the mid-1960s. Bill Monroe was hired to play mandolin on Rose Maddox's 1962 album Rose Maddox Sings Bluegrass. He left after the first day, and Stoneman was brought in to take his place. The family, by then billed as the Stonemans, debuted on the Grand Ole Opry in 1962. They hosted a syndicated television show from 1965 to 1969, moved to Nashville in 1966, and won the CMA's Vocal Group of the Year award in 1967. She turned almost entirely to gospel music in the early 1970s and was ordained as a minister in 1982, preaching in prisons. She entered the Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame with the Stoneman Family in 2021. She was the last surviving Stoneman sibling when she died in 2026, at age 92.
In the newsletter
- No. 10 Winter 1997
- No. 12 Summer 1997
- No. 19 Spring 1999
- No. 22 Winter 2000
- No. 28 January 2002
- No. 29 May 2002
- No. 32 April 2003
- No. 33 September 2003