I was driving to see my mechanic when I heard the news on the radio about Dolly Parton. I sat in the lobby for an hour or so and everyone… everyone that came in the shop talked about Dolly.
Some observations:
Everyone had a Dolly story. Despite being a country music legend few stories had anything to do with country music.
My “Dolly story” is that the movie “Steel Magnolias,” in which she starred with Jane Fonda, Lily Tomlin, Olympia Dukakis, Sally Field, Shirley MacLaine, Darryl Hannah, and Julia Roberts, was filmed in my elementary school hometown of Natchitoches, Louisiana. The movies’ closing aerial shots were along the picturesque Cane River where my buddies and I rode our bicycles when we were kids. (See Frost Advisory #236 – Steel Magnolias and your radio station).
Some creative thoughts from my long time friend Kevin Avery…
“Lessons from the Life of Dolly”:
1. Dream big and never forget where you came from.
“She was born in a one room cabin on the banks of the Little Pigeon River, the fourth of twelve children, into a poverty so plain that her father paid the doctor who delivered her with a sack of cornmeal.”
John D’Acquisto
She finished as one of the wealthiest women in entertainment living on a 75-acre farm. She had built a fortune of $650+ million, after $500 million was donated to charity.
To honor her father who never learned to read, Dolly’s “Imagination Library” is dedicated to inspiring a love of reading by gifting books every month free of charge to children from birth to age five.
Dolly said, “The sweetest gift is a gift twice-given, as they say, so I always think there’s so much truth in that. It makes me feel good that something that has made me happy can make someone else happy.”
2. You have to know how to laugh at yourself!
One of the best Dolly quotes, when asked about her many plastic surgeries; “It takes a lot of money to look this cheap!”
Dolly never looked cheap, but she understood “show biz” and her image delivered!
Humor and humility are partners and Dolly showed us how to have both.
3. Lastly, Dolly was a shining example of living your life for God.
She welcomed everyone. She was open about her Christian faith, but she never used it to distance herself from others. She cared deeply for those who were struggling.
“Dolly spent a lifetime sharing her light with others. Perhaps the greatest tribute we can give her is to carry a little of that light forward ourselves; to be kinder, to give more generously, to lift others up, and to leave the world a little brighter than we found it.”
Lee Greenwood
Idea: challenge listeners to “catch someone doing something nice” and post about it, tag the station and use the hashtag #BeLikeDolly