To Kansas grave’s visitors, Tammy Faye’s legacy is more than cosmetic
On the edge of Kansas’ windswept prairie, near a nondescript grave, sits the most recent token of affection.
It’s a tube of lip gloss.
Since her death on July 20, 2007, fans and friends of Tammy Faye Bakker Messner occasionally make pilgrimages to where the ashes of the Christian television celebrity were laid to rest. There, they leave the types of cosmetic items – lipstick, mascara – that helped give Tammy Faye her distinctive look.
In a Harper County cemetery, remote and unmarked, Tammy Faye’s gravestone is far away from the glamor, controversy and cameras that followed the woman who helped build three Christian television networks: the Christian Broadcasting Network with Pat Robertson; the Trinity Broadcasting Network with Paul Crouch; and Praise The Lord ministry – and ultimately the ill-fated Christian theme and water park Heritage USA in Fort Mill, S.C. – with Jim Bakker, her first husband.
This story was originally published January 21, 2015 at 12:37 PM.