News

Friday March 5, 2010


Country Music Star Randy Travis to Headline Terri Schiavo Benefit Concert

By Peter J. Smith

INDIANAPOLIS, Indiana, March 5, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Country music stars Randy Travis and Collin Raye will both be performing in Indianapolis in April to benefit the foundation set up in honor of Terri Schiavo and to help commemorate the five year anniversary of her death.

Randy Travis is headlining The Terri Schiavo Life & Hope Concert scheduled for Sunday, April 11, 2010, 7 PM at the Murat Theatre in Indianapolis.

Bobby Schindler, Terri Schiavo’s younger brother, spoke with LifeSiteNews.com about the event. “Randy Travis was part of our efforts way back in helping Terri,” he said. “He attached his name to a press release with some other celebrities speaking out on behalf of Terri and our family. So he was kind of the first one we wanted to approach because of his support.”

Travis has spent twenty-five years on the country music charts and has become one of the top-ten selling solo country artists of all time, with twenty-two number one hits, six Grammy Awards, five Country Music Awards, nine Academy of Country Music Awards, and ten American Music Awards to his credit.

“Even if you don’t like country music,” said Schindler, “anybody that has every listened to Randy’s voice will walk away agreeing that he’s got one of the best voices in the music industry, and not just country.”

The ticket proceeds from the April 11 concert will benefit the Terri Schindler Schiavo Foundation (Terri’s Foundation), a 501(c)(3) non-profit dedicated to helping persons with disabilities, and the incapacitated, who are in or potentially facing life-threatening situations.

Collin Raye, who has five Platinum Albums, fifteen number one hits and twenty-four top ten songs, and who was five times nominated as Country Music’s Male Vocalist of the year, will open for Travis.

Schindler said Raye was also very receptive to performing for the benefit concert. His granddaughter, Hailey, is afflicted with a rare degenerative brain disorder and Collin has worked tirelessly to help develop a cure for Hailey and assist other families faced with similar situations.

Terri Schiavo, a woman left severely brain damaged after collapsing at age 26 under mysterious circumstances in 1990, was killed in March 2005, in spite of her family’s strenuous fight to prevent the court-ordered removal of her feeding tube and water. The order was made at the behest of her husband, who had guardianship of his disabled wife at the same time he was committing open adultery against her.

A medical autopsy conducted after her two-week-long death by dehydration, revealed that Terri could have lived at least another 10 years with proper care, had a strong heart, and was in fact just brain-injured.

Bobby Schindler told LSN that “Terri could have been taken anywhere. All she needed was a wheelchair. She was simply a woman with a brain injury that needed to be cared for.”

Schindler said that his family recognized that “this issue was much larger than Terri and our battle to save her life.” For this reason they founded Terri’s Foundation to educate the public about the situation faced by disabled persons like his sister, who are not actually facing an “end-of-life situation,” but just need food and water to survive.

“We’re protecting families and we are trying to educate the public on the issue, because it is so widely misunderstood,” said Schindler. “We are talking about people that are not dying, that could quite possibly live a normal lifespan – as they said Terri quite possibly could have – and they are only being sustained by food and water.”

Schindler said he had heard that “anywhere between 50,000 to upward of hundreds of thousands of people with similar brain injuries to Terri” are living in the United States and are potentially vulnerable to the treatment Terri received.

The concert is also being sponsored by Priests for Life and the Whole Life Initiative.

A partial list of pro-life leaders and individuals in attendance include: Jill Stanek, Pro-Life Blogger; Joe and Ann Scheidler, Pro Life Action League; Father Thomas Euteneuer, Human Life International; Jennifer Gerioux, One More Soul; Attorney David Gibbs, Christian Law Association; Brother Paul O’Donnell, Franciscan Brothers of Peace; along with members of National Right to Life Committee, Priests for Life, I AM WHOLE LIFE, and Life Issues Institute.

Schindler said they have yet to schedule a “recognizable or celebrity-type MC,” but they hope to find one soon.

“We’re just urging people to come. It’s gonna be a fun night and we need your support,” said Schindler.

“Even if you don’t like country music, you’re going to hear one of the best voices in music.”

Just 2,000 tickets are available for the April 11 Terri Schiavo Life and Hope Concert in Indianapolis, Indiana. Tickets cost $75 and the proceeds go to benefit the Terri Schindler Schiavo Foundation. For more information or to purchase a ticket, go to the Life and Hope Concert website.