In this day and age, you’d be hard-pressed to find anyone more universally liked – and maybe more universally good – than Dolly Parton. She does important work for people who need it, especially kids, and especially those from her native and beloved Tennessee, and she does it all without fanfare.
You can find all of the charities she supports, the number of books she gives away, the clout she wields, with a quick Google, but you’ll never hear her talk about it, or toot her own horn. She seems to understand her place in the world, and her mission within it, better than most people on this planet.
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Some of her more famous endeavors include Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library, which mails free books to children from birth until kindergarten – they give away around 1 million free books every month.
This past year she also donated $1 million toward the research for a coronavirus vaccine.
You don’t have to be a fan of country music to be a fan of Dolly Parton, is what I’m saying, and she seems to have plenty of them among Tennessee’s lawmakers. There was a bill set to move forward that suggested they erect a statue of her on state capitol grounds, but the country legend politely requested the kill the bill before voting on it, “given all that is going on in the world.”
Parton is a native of the Great Smoky Mountains, and Tennessee lawmakers are tasked with removing and replacing a monument to Nathan Bedford Forrest that currently stands. He was supporter of the Confederacy and one of the first leaders of the Ku Klux Klan.
The bill was filed by State Rep. John Windle, who asked “at this point in history, is there a better example, not just in America but in the world, of a leader that is a kind, decent, passionate human being?”
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He didn’t speak with her about it first, though, admitting that the “only connection that Dolly Parton and I have is that we’re both hillbillies.”
Parton was grateful for the acknowledgment, and says that if lawmakers still feel she deserves the honor at some point in the future, “I’m certain I will stand proud in our great State Capitol as a grateful Tennessean,” and in the meantime will continue her philanthropic efforts “to make this great state proud.”
This move is perhaps not surprising, given than Parton declines often to be seen as involved with politics. She turned down not one, but two invitations by President Trump to receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom and has already declined the same offer from President Biden because she doesn’t want it to look like she’s “doing politics.”
A great woman and a great example to all of us, and I think a reminder that we should do good for the sake of doing good, not because of the accolades it might earn us in return.
Cheers!
