Dear Dolly Parton - We Will Always Love You

Beege Welborn

After breaking into their regular schedule with news of the national treasure's passing, CBS did a beautiful job with their tributes to Dolly on last night's broadcast. And lucky them - it seems some had had a chance to actually meet this wonderful lady, and you can tell the impact she had made.

And she touched so many lives, this phenomenal human being.

...It wasn’t long before she caught her big break on The Porter Wagoner Show in 1977. Though Wagoner’s audience initially hated that she replaced beloved singer Norma Jean, Parton won them over. The duo notched 11 top-10 singles together, but Parton was destined to run her own show. When she decided to go solo in 1974, a bitter Wagoner resisted and eventually sued her for $3 million.

Instead of anger, Parton responded by writing “I Will Always Love You” as a farewell letter. The song went to No. 1 twice for Parton, but hit cosmic heights in 1992 when Whitney Houston belted it out for The Bodyguard, selling 4 million copies and racking up massive royalties for Parton.

Through the ’70s and ’80s, Parton’s power crossed over to pop and Hollywood. She scored a monster smash with “Here You Come Again,” and famously teamed up with Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin for the 1980 workplace comedy 9 to 5. Parton wrote the movie’s legendary theme song, later lighting up the screen in The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas and Steel Magnolias.

When male interviewers tried to corner her with condescending questions about her eye-popping chest or plastic surgeries, Parton responded with legendary, self-deprecating jokes. “It takes a lot of money to look this cheap,” she’d beam, owning her image before anyone else could mock it.

God bless her.

...Yet for all her plaques, theme parks (like her beloved Dollywood in Pigeon Forge), and Hollywood fame, Parton’s lasting legacy might have been her radical, unpretentious kindness.

In 1995, inspired by her father’s inability to read or write, she launched Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library. What started as a local crusade to mail free books to kids in East Tennessee ballooned into a global powerhouse, shipping over 200 million books to children across five countries.

When devastating wildfires wiped out thousands of homes in East Tennessee in 2016, her My People Fund didn’t just write a one-time check. The fund gave affected families $1,000 a month to get back on their feet, bumping the final check up to $10,000. When the COVID-19 pandemic hit in 2020, Parton sent a $1 million check to Vanderbilt University, directly funding the research that helped create the Moderna vaccine.

She also showed her grace in private. Years after Wagoner sued her, Dolly stepped in to rescue him from financial ruin when he hit rock bottom, buying his publishing company to pay off his debts and gifting it right back to him before his death.

Oh, there won't ever be another like her to come again.

Maybe her best tv clip ever pic.twitter.com/K54kfdEjiK

— Matt Jones (@KySportsRadio) August 25, 2026

Produced in 2016 for the 50th anniversary of the Country Music Awards, they called it 'the biggest music video in country music history.' And none of it is AI.