Jennings Makes Hall; Shriver on Mend

By Stephen M. Silverman

07/10/2001 at 05:31 PM EDT

NAMED: The Country Music Association announced on Tuesday its biggest list of its Hall of Fame inductees ever. Among those to be enshrined at an Oct. 4 awards dinner in Nashville: Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis, "Whisperin' " Bill Anderson, the Everly Brothers, Homer & Jethro and a longtime critic of the CMA, Waylon Jennings . . . APPROVED: Gloria Chapa, a Las Vegas Hilton cocktail waitress, has won the right to a trial in her lawsuit. In it, she claims that she was fondled by former basketball star Dennis Rodman and then fired for reporting the alleged 1998 incident to the hotel-casino. Chapa, who was reinstated in her job (that case faced a binding arbitration hearing, according to her suit), can now proceed with her claims against the Hilton on charges of battery, sexual harassment, retaliation and negligence, reports the Las Vegas Sun. Charges against Rodman were dismissed . . . RELEASED: Eunice Kennedy Shriver, sister of the late President Kennedy and mother of newscaster Maria Shriver, went home yesterday from Cape Cod Hospital, where she had been treated for injuries suffered in a head-on car crash last week. Shriver, 79, was cited for failing to wear a seat belt and for driving a vehicle with an expired registrations . . . DIED: Greenwich Village folk song legend Fred Neil, 64, whose "Everybody's Talkin'" (sung by Harry Nilsson) helped propel the 1969 movie "Midnight Cowboy" to a best picture Oscar, was found dead on Saturday at his home in Summerland Key, Fla., apparently of natural causes, said a Monroe County Sheriff's Office spokeswoman. "He had a strong, powerful voice," Bob Dylan once said of Neil, "and a powerful sense of rhythm."