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Dolly Parton

Guest post by: Linda Burson

Article Overview: Mazon Associates, Inc. features country singing star Dolly Parton as its Entrepreneur of the Month in the September 2010 issue of Building Bridges, our company's monthly newsletter.

Dolly Parton

Known by many simply as "Dolly," Dolly Rebecca Parton is more than a big award-winning country singing star. A little girl with big dreams, she was born on January 19, 1946, the fourth of 12 children born to Robert Lee Parton (a tobacco sharecropper) and his wife Avie in tiny Locust Ridge, Tennessee (Sevier County), in the Great Smoky Mountains. Dolly started singing and writing her own songs when she was a young child - by the age of nine, she sang on local radio, and by age 10 she was a regular on a local television show, "The Cas Walker Farm and Home Hour." The day after her high school graduation, Dolly headed for Nashville to pursue her singing dreams. On her first afternoon in town, she met Carl Dean (a truck driver) at Wishy Washy Laundromat in Nashville and they married two years later on May 30, 1966 in Ringgold, Georgia. After one year as a demo singer in Nashville, she joined the popular "Porter Wagner Show" in 1967, which launched her career in the music industry, and earned her numerous music honors. Dolly left the show in 1974 and continued as a solo artist, winning the 1975 and 1976 CMA's (Country Music Awards) Female Vocalist of the Year honors and 1978 Entertainer of the Year. In the 1980s, Dolly took a turn at acting and starred in several highly successful films. Never abandoning her first love of singing and songwriting, she has sold more than 100 million records worldwide and won countless awards including eight CMA and seven Grammy Awards (including Best Bluegrass Album for "The Grass is Blue" in 2000 and Best Female Country Vocal Performance in 2001 for "Shine" from her Little Sparrow album). She has taken more than 20 songs to No. 1, including the mega hit, "I Will Always Love You." In 1999 she received the highest honor bestowed upon a country music performer when she was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame. Dolly Does Dollywood. Pigeon Forge, Tennessee (in Sevier County) sits in a valley in the foothills of the Great Smoky Mountains, on land that was once Cherokee hunting ground. A treaty in the 1700's opened the valley up for settlement, and through slow growth, was incorporated on April 4, 1961. Shortly after incorporation, brothers Grover and Harry Robbins of North Carolina built and opened a small Civil War theme park then just outside the new city limits, called Rebel Railroad which featured a simulated Confederate steam train being attacked by Union soldiers, with a general store, blacksmith shop and saloon. In 1966 when the Civil War Centennial excitement was fading, they transitioned to a Wild West theme, and sold the property to Art Model (then-owner of the Cleveland Browns football team). New attractions were added and the name changed to Goldrush Junction. The park was again sold in 1976 to Jack and Pete Herschend (Branson-based Herschend Family Entertainment), who made $1M in improvements and renamed the park Silver Dollar City Tennessee in 1977 as a sister park to their original frontier park, Silver Dollar City near Branson, Missouri. In 1985, the popular park drew approximately 350,000 visitors. In 1986, Dolly Parton and the Herschends formed Dollywood Company and purchased the 118-acre park, with Dolly sharing her entertainment expertise, her love of the Great Smoky Mountains and her name to the well-known park, with Herschend Family Entertainment as operating partner in the new company. The park name was changed to Dollywood.

In its first year of operations, Dollywood drew 1.3 million visitors, an increase of approximately 75% from 1985. Dollywood consistently entertains more than two million visitors annually (a 54% increase over its inaugural 1986 season and a 160% increase over its 1985 attendance. More than $162 million has been invested in park expansions and additions since its first season of operation. Except for the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, Dollywood is the most visited attraction in the state of Tennessee, and employs approximately 2,000 people during the peak operating season, making Dollywood Company the largest employer in Dolly's native Sevier County. Positively impacting the economy, each season the Dollywood Foods Team uses more than 3 million pounds of ice, 46 tons of french fries, more than 100,000 feet of aluminum foil, and 750,000 pairs of disposable gloves. Dollywood's Wardrobe Shop uses more than 24,000 feet of fabric to sew 7,650 costumes each season.

Dolly is also a successful author of several books: an autobiography, a children's book and a cookbook of her favorite recipes, "Dolly's Dixie Fixin's." With her love of books and writing, she developed and launched Imagination Library in Sevier County in 1996 so every preschool child from birth until his/her fifth birthday could have his/her own collection of books, regardless of the family's income. Each month a carefully selected age-appropriate book arrives by mail from the "Book Lady," as Dolly is affectionately known to her younger fans. Imagination Library is currently at work in 1,100 communities in three countries (the USA, Canada and the United Kingdom). More than 560,000 children receive books each month through the generosity of local sponsors and the Dollywood Foundation. More than seven million books will be distributed in 2010. Dolly's Imagination Library marked a milestone on June 11, 2010, as she presented the reading program's 25 millionth book to four-year-old Kumar Stewart of Birmingham, Alabama. Imagination Library is a unique opportunity for everyone to do something simple and powerful for preschoolers. "By inspiring parents to read to their children, we can help them Dream More, Learn More, Care More and Be More!"

In addition to her music awards, Dolly was one of six Kennedy Center honorees recognized in December 2006 for their outstanding career contributions to American culture. At the young age of 64 years, Dolly carries on with no signs of slowing down, and promises that she'll never retire. And, she says that not a day goes by that she doesn't write. When not traveling, she spends time out of the lime-light with her husband Carl Dean (notoriously reclusive) at their home in Brentwood, Tennessee. Carl runs an asphalt road-surface-paving business in Nashville and has always shunned publicity, and rarely accompanies her to any events (he has only seen her perform once). Although they have no children, the couple partly raised several of Dolly's younger siblings (her nieces and nephews refer to her as "Aunt Granny"), and they are the sole guardian of a family friend's son who was orphaned.

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Article Tags: books, Brentwood, building bridges, carl Dean, Dolly Parton, Dollywood, Dollywood Company, entrepreneur, Herschend Family Entertainment, Imagination Library, mazon, Pigeon Forge, Sevier County



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