Everyone Loves Dolly, No Last Name Necessary

I spent the entire morning last Saturday watching the news.

I’m not sure why, because I rarely do this. Like lots of people, I follow dozens of news feeds on social media, and that’s where I normally keep up with what’s going on in the world.

I had forgotten how exhausting it is watching news the old-fashioned way.

We’ve got anti-vaxxing Canadian truckers, crisis in the Ukraine, 6-year-olds being arrested, cheating Russian figure skaters and a boatload more punches to the gut looping over and over.

And then there are the commercials.

If it can become inflamed, irritated or infected, we have a fix for it. And if that doesn’t work, it’s okay, because your family got that life insurance policy on you for $9.95 a month, and now they aren’t going to have to pony up for your funeral like Aunt Peggy’s family did.

I couldn’t take it anymore, so I swapped the TV screen for the laptop screen.

That’s when a story about Dolly Parton made my day.

Beginning later this month, Dollywood will begin paying tuition for all employees who want to go to college.

It also covers books and miscellaneous fees.

Here’s the kicker, though. Eligibility starts on day one of employment and applies to all workers, whether part- or full-time, or even seasonal.

The story also noted that Dollywood employees already receive free meals during their shifts and access to the park’s healthcare facility.

I saw where employees at the Pigeon Forge park make an average of $14 an hour which isn’t too shabby.

And given all the perks, it seems like a pretty good gig to me.

Plus, it’s a job in a theme park. Just think about how satisfying it would be to watch the horror on the faces of the roller coaster riders when you push that green button.

I would do that for free.

Dolly and I go way back. She is one of the first entertainers I ever remember watching on our black and white television on “The Porter Wagoner Show.”

She’s had nearly 1,000 songs recorded. She’s won 14 Grammy awards.

According to Forbes, she is worth an estimated $350 million. 

She could be living on Maui with a private jet for each day of the week.

She could be building spaceships or buying a super yacht.

But she leaves that stuff to some of those other wealthy celebrities.

Instead, she’s sending her employees to school.

Everybody loves Dolly. And she has done a lot to deserve it — both with her entertaining and her philanthropy.

Her charitable contributions are too vast to mention, but let me highlight a few that stand out to me.

Her Imagination Library began in 1995 and sends books monthly to all the children who sign up. In 2021, it shipped its 150 millionth book. She doesn’t fund the library entirely herself, but I’m sure her fingerprints are on a lot of those checks.

After the Gatlinburg fire in 2016, she gave $1,000 a month to families who lost their houses and awarded scholarships to graduating seniors who lived in the area and lost their homes.

If you got the Moderna vaccine, you can thank her in part. In 2020, she gave $1 million for Covid vaccine research.

And I hear she can carry a tune pretty well.