The Country Music Association of Texas held its awards show at the Broken Spoke in 1975 to honor B.J. Thomas, Gene Watson and Red Steagall. Thomas crossed genres into pop, country, and gospel; his biggest hits include “Raindrops Keep Fallin’ on my Head.” “Another Done Somebody Wrong Song,” and “I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry.”

The seventy-two-year-old Gene Watson wrote two dozen top-ten hits after releasing his first single, “Love in the Hot Afternoon,” in 1975. Songwriter, recording artist, television personality, and movie actor Red Steagall wrote more than two hundred songs that he and others recorded, including “Here We Go Again,” “Party Dolls,” and “Wine.”

The late Waco radio personality Bud Fisher cofounded the CMA in 1972 and held its annual awards program at the Broken Spoke well into the 2000s before relocating the show to The Woodlands. James White received the Bud Fisher Lifetime Achievement Award at the CMA of Texas gala in 2015 at a venue in Spring, Texas, and former George W. Bush proclaimed the day “Country Music Day in Texas.”