Editing Waylon Jennings (section)

== Early life ==
Jennings was born on June 15, 1937, on the J. W. Bittner farm near [[Littlefield, Texas]]. He was the son of Lorene Beatrice (née Shipley, 1919–2006) and William Albert Jennings (1911–1968).{{sfn|Jennings|Kaye|1996|p=4}} The Jennings family line descended from Irish and [[Black-Dutch]].{{sfn|Jennings|Kaye|1996|p=10}} He was the oldest of four children, followed by [[Tommy Jennings]] (1941–2019), James Jennings, and Bo Jennings (1950–2018).<ref name="Classic Country Music">{{cite web|url=https://classiccountrymusic.com/waylon-jennings-brother-has-passed-away/|title=Waylon Jennings' Brother Has Passed Away|date=May 2019 |publisher=Classic Country Music|access-date=October 25, 2023}}</ref> The Shipley line descended from his great-grandfather, a farmer and lawman from [[Tennessee]], with Jennings adding that "along the way, a lot of Indian blood mixed in," including [[Cherokee]] and [[Comanche]] families.{{sfn|Jennings|Kaye|1996|pp=9–11}}

The name on Jennings's birth certificate was Wayland. It was changed after a Baptist preacher visited his parents and congratulated his mother for naming him after the Wayland Baptist College, now [[Wayland Baptist University]], in [[Plainview, Texas]]. Lorene Jennings, who was [[Churches of Christ|Church of Christ]] and had been unaware of the college, changed the spelling to Waylon. Jennings later expressed in his autobiography, "I didn't like Waylon. It sounded so corny and hillbilly, but it's been good to me, and I'm pretty well at peace with it now."{{sfn|Jennings|Kaye|1996|p=6}} After working as a laborer on the Bittner farm, Jennings's father moved the family to Littlefield and established a [[Creamery|retail creamery]].{{sfn|Jasinski|p=432|2012}}