HONOLULU -- Jim Nabors, whose rendition of "Back Home Again in Indiana" became an Indianapolis 500 fixture for more than four decades, has died at 87.
Husband Stan Cadwallader said the actor best known as the television star Gomer Pyle died Thursday at home in Hawaii after his health had declined for the past year.
"Back Home Again in Indiana" is a centerpiece of the pageantry leading up to the start of the Indy 500, and Nabors sang it 36 times between 1972 and 2014. In his first rendition, he knew the tune but had to scribble the lyrics on his hand.