Have you ever gotten the feeling when you see somebody for the first time that you just know they are going to be successful in life? I’ve felt that sensation several times including a number of times in college while interacting with friends and with a few people who later became famous. For example, I vividly remember seeing Porter Wagoner and Dolly Parton performing in the parking lot of Piggly Wiggly in my hometown of Norton, Virginia. This was most likely in 1967 or 1968, and I would have been about nine years old. I knew intuitively then that Dolly would become a star! To this day, I don’t know how as it was just a “gut” feeling. I do know that one should never violate a hunch!
I got to meet Porter in person in Nashville but never got to meet Dolly. When I was teaching at Belmont University in Nashville, Tennessee from 1996 to 2000, I got to know Dolly’s niece, Danielle Parton. Danielle looked a lot like Dolly then and now almost three decades later, she still looks like her famous aunt! She would come by the office and share with me what Dolly was doing that day. I was so impressed with Dolly’s philanthropy, simple living, faith, and overall handling of her life. Dolly had found her calling. I’m sure Dolly didn’t know I existed. Danielle graduated in 1998 and was, like me, the first in her family to earn a college degree. Though Danielle was a Business Administration major, she was not a student in any of my marketing courses (although Reba McEntire’s niece, Autumn, was).
In addition to experiencing poverty and having a love for soup beans, corn bread and other country food, Dolly has inspired me to give more because she has given so much. Unlike Dolly, I have zero musical talent and the only way out of poverty for me was through education and especially higher education. Dolly’s giving to improving literacy and graduation rates in Tennessee encouraged me. But I believe her most inspirational project is Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library which is celebrating its 30th year of progress. Dolly and I have this in common, too. We both LOVE books! I have over 10,000 books in my personal library. I firmly believe that reading a lot has contributed to my success.
Since launching in 1995, Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library has become the preeminent early childhood book gifting program in the world. The flagship program of The Dollywood Foundation, a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization, has gifted over 270 million free books in the United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Australia, and The Republic of Ireland. This is achieved through funding shared by The Dollywood Foundation and Local Program Partners. The Imagination Library mails more than three million high-quality, age-appropriate books each month to enrolled children from birth to age five. Dolly envisioned creating a lifelong love of reading and inspiring children to Dream More, Learn More, Care More, Be More™. The program has been widely researched, and results demonstrate the positive impact on early childhood development and literacy skills. Penguin Random House is the exclusive publisher for Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library. For more information, please visit www.imaginationlibrary.com.
Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library sets goals, and new goals are created once current ones are achieved (just as I recommend in my book, The Success Pyramid: A Scientific Formula for Getting Everything You Desire). This creates an ever-growing and expanding organizational culture, much like that of Dolly’s “always-keep-dreaming mindset.”
I did not know until recently that Dolly is a cancer survivor. If the stories are correct, Dolly was diagnosed with uterine cancer in 1984 at age 38. Unlike the esophageal cancer that I have (85 to 90 percent fatal), uterine cancer was then and is now highly curable especially if caught in the early stages. Dolly elected to have a hysterectomy which meant she would be unable to have children. Regardless of stage (mine was Stage 3) and the cure rate, getting any cancer diagnosis can be devastating, and I’m sure it was for her.
Finally, Dolly and I have a terrible thing in common. We both have cared for loved ones with dementia. It has been reported that Dolly’s husband, Carl Dean, before his death at age 82 on March 3, 2025 could no longer recognize her in his final days following a six-year battle with Alzheimer’s disease. My mother, who is 87, has had dementia for several years and it is progressing. My sister insists that Mother often doesn’t recognize me or her. Most frequently, Mother thinks I am her brother. It is so sad since Mother can no longer cook (I miss her fried cabbage, mustard greens, soup beans, corn bread, banana pudding and many other Appalachian dishes that she just “threw together” – unfortunately, we did not write down many of her recipes), drive, read a book or follow a movie or TV program. Nevertheless, Mother is not violent, and we still have her with us. When I got terribly sick almost two years ago following chemo, radiation, an esophagectomy, and immunotherapy that was attacking my lungs, my mother and sister sent my nephew to North Carolina to bring me “home” to Virginia. I’ve been here ever since, and it’s been a blessing to be close to Mother even though she is not the same.
In sum, both Dolly and I are proud of our Appalachian upbringings. I am not ashamed that I was born in poverty, and I suspect that Dolly isn’t either. Dolly has achieved unbelievable success, but she has worked hard and persisted. I have a tremendous amount of respect and admiration for her and “will always love her!”
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