Cliffie with Tim DuBois, who is heartily laughing at one of Cliffie’s jokes. Tim was on the Board of Directors of the Academy of Country Music Board when Cliffie was the ACM’s Historian. A brief background on Tim: he received his B.A. and M.A. in Accounting from Oklahoma State University. Although Tim was a successful Certified Public Accountant for companies such as the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas in the 1970s, he was always attracted to the music industry. In 1986 Fitzgerald-Hartley (a Los Angeles-based artist management firm) hired Tim to be the executive in charge of their Nashville branch. When Clive Davis (founder of Arista/New York) decided to open an Arista/Nashville office in 1993, he hired Tim to be in charge of it. Under Tim’s astute executive and creative leadership, Arista/Nashville sold over 80 million records in their first eleven years; the talented acts that helped to contribute to this record feat were: Alan Jackson, Brooks & Dunn, Steve Wariner, Brad Paisley, Pam Tillis and Diamond Rio. Tim was not only an executive, he also was a talented songwriter and record producer. He wrote five songs that reached #1 on the country charts, which includes “Love in the First Degree” (artist, Alabama), “The Bluest Eyes in Texas” (artist, Restless Heart) and “She got the Goldmine, I Got the Shaft” (artist, Jerry Reed); Tim also co-wrote a song with Vince Gill called “When I Call Your Name,” which became the Country Music Association’s Song of the Year in 1992. His other songwriting achievements were twenty-four Top Ten singles; six ASCAP Awards; nine BMI Country Awards; and two BMI Pop Awards. In 1996, Tim was inducted into Oklahoma State University’s Hall of Fame.