In November of 2023, Frank Acomb and Barbara Blumer started talking about doing something permanent and specific to Corning being Duane's birthplace.  

As background, Frank is the host of "Frankly Speaking" and became friends with Duane through interviewing him.  Barbara was interested in Duane's story as an extension of the type of Corning people stories she's been researching. She had recently completed a local history book about The People Wall mural in Corning's City Hall. Frank and she met when he interviewed her about her book.  

First thought was to hold a Duane Eddy Day and invite him to come back to his hometown again.  (The last time he and Deed were here was in 2017. )  Probably around his birthday in April, 2025 and dedicate a "Sidewalk Star" within the Centerway Square existing brick program, probably near the stage.

On 4/4/24 at 4 pm, we organized our first meeting at the library, and invited others we knew that had interest:  Local history librarian Linda Reimer, artist/writer David Higgins (now past member), musician and music store owner Ben Borkowski, past owners of Marich music store Dick and Marilyn Puccio, and Steuben County historian Griffin Bates.  

We met four times, Duane knew we were working on something, when sadly he passed away on April 30th, just four days after his 86th birthday. 

RIP Duane Eddy, April 26, 1938 - April 30, 2024, age 86

As a result of his passing, our plans have been revised to create a memorial for him.  

We concluded there wasn't any rush to do something by his birthday in April 2025.  We will take our time.  

So, our activities are now focussed on researching Duane's local history, building awareness that he was born in Corning, and noodling ideas for what we can do that is permanent as a memorial.  We are looking into things like a historical marker.  

We've done some PR in the newspapers and on local TV, made a display on Market Street, created stickers, a website and collected lots of interesting material about him and his role in music history.  We are collecting clips of his stories and interviews, as well as his recordings.  

We are currently in the researching and noodling stage, early on in the process of figuring out what we want to do.  

Duane's international fan club is called the Duane Eddy Circle because Duane  preferred a circle of friends rather than a fan club. It's the long established primary group who have followed Duane's career and music.  

They are based in the U.K.  They post regularly on Facebook,  https://www.duaneeddycircle.com/  It has  been existence since 1975, almost 50 years and hosted by Arthur Moir (UK),  Jim Grant (UK) and Jim McDowell (USA) , with over x followers, publishes a printed magazine called Twangsville, and hosts a conference, annually, in May, now held online.  

We decided to follow in their path, and call ourselves the Corning Duane Eddy Circle.

Our website is called CorningTwang.com

For additional information, please write to us at info@corningtwang.com