A Tribute to The Queen Of Country

On August 25, 2026, we sadly lost arguably the biggest legend in country music, Dolly Parton, at the age of 80. It may seem silly, but one reason I looked up to her was the fact that she was small in size at a mere five feet tall as I am, but she had a big personality and showed that big things come in small packages. Although it was initially her petite stature that made me look up to her in high school, many more bigger facets of her made her an icon to me. 

Although she became a rich and famous icon, Dolly Rebecca Parton wasn’t born wealthy at all. Born January 19, 1946 in a small cabin to Robert Lee Parton and Avie Lee Parton in Locust Ridge, Tennessee, Parton was the fourth of twelve children. Her childhood was like the cartoon “The Loud House.”

She wrote a ton of songs about her childhood, like “Coat Of Many Colors,” which describes her mother making her a very colorful coat out of rags, “My Tennessee Mountain Home,” which describes the beauty of her simple childhood, along with several other songs about the poverty she experienced in her youth. 

Her fame began when she performed in the Grand Ole Opry in 1959 at the age of 13. By 18, she moved to Nashville, where she met Carl Dean, her beloved husband of 59 years who passed away in March 2025.

As the years passed, Parton rose to greater and greater fame. In 1973, she released her iconic hit “Jolene.” In 1980, she starred in a film based on another of her iconic hits “9 to 5” where she, Jane Fonda, and Lily Tomlin portrayed the three leads Doralee Rhodes, Judy Bernly, and Violet Newstead respectively, and the film detailed how the three women in a 1980s office overthrew their sexist boss Franklin Hart. That jumpstarted her acting career. 

In 1986, she opened her iconic amusement park, Dollywood, which I hope to go to someday. Think Whitney Houston was the first to sing the iconic song “I Will Always Love You?” Think again, it was Dolly in 1974! At the turn of the millennium, she starred in Hannah Montana with her goddaughter Miley Cyrus as well. In her life, Parton received a total of 11 Grammy Awards, and she was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame and even the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Her Imagination Library has helped countless children read too. These are numerous reasons why she meant a lot to me, but I truly realized what an icon she was about four years ago. Four years ago was when I truly learned how special she was

In my junior year of high school, I met a girl who looked exactly like a young Dolly in the drama club. I told her she looked like Dolly, and I started calling her Dolly then. We became close friends that year. I still nickname her “Dolly" to this day. 2022 was the year Dolly gained her place in my heart. That was the year I met my high school friend and found out that Dolly herself was a petite icon with her compact stature. By total coincidence, that year my theatre teacher told us we were doing “9 to 5” for our spring production. As a Dolly fan, I was excited. The play is based on the 1980 film and it briefly ran on Broadway in 2009. And yes, the girl I nicknamed Dolly back then coincidentally ended up playing Doralee! Through the few months of watching my friends rehearse for this play, I admired Parton more and more and I am deeply saddened by her passing. When I found out about her death in newspaper class, one of my high school friends I did “9 to 5” with texted me “Oh no Jodi check the news” with crying emojis and our whole group chat has been tributes to her since. Dolly’s always put a smile on my face (and everyone else’s) and her life can tell anyone you can do anything no matter how modestly you start out in life. For four years I’ve been very happy when a song of hers came on and I listened to a radio station playing entirely her songs in tribute to her for a week after her death. 

Dolly has lived a long and fulfilling life and she will be missed greatly. I’m very happy to have lived in a world with her in it for 21 years.

In the words of her (and my staff bio), “Dreams are of no value if they’re not equipped with wings.” She said dreams must have wings, and after spending her whole life helping others grow theirs, she finally gained her own on August 25.

September 25 (9-25) will now be known as Dolly Day, so make sure to wear your best cowboy or cowgirl gear!