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On Aug. 25, the world lost a giant in so many respects. Especially in this day and age, you are hard pressed to find a person who bridges nearly every divide and who so few people, if any, have an unkind word to say about them. Dolly Parton, a self-proclaimed country girl from the mountains of east Tennessee, created a legacy that spans so many pieces of today's popular culture, but almost none more than her love and respect for our natural world, and the lengths she went to keeping them as wild as could be.
If you've never heard Dolly talk about her beloved Smoky Mountains or nature in general, I implore you to stop reading, head to Google, and take a listen. In her witty, country tone, she told stories of her life in the mountains, recalling how the rolling hills and babbling streams of Appalachia shaped the way she viewed the world. While seeing its beauty, she also saw the negative impacts people were having on the lands that she so loved.
"We're just mistreating Mother Nature -- that's like bein' ugly to your mama," she said. "We need to take better care of the things that God gave us freely. And that we're so freely messin' up."
In her songs, the natural landscape around her was impressed upon you, drawing on imagery not unfamiliar to many of us in the Ohio Valley.
"Life is as peaceful as a baby's sigh," where, "crickets sing in the fields nearby," she wrote in her 1972 song, "My Tennessee Mountain Home." That song, named an official state song of Tennessee in 2022, is one of many odes to nature that Dolly sang throughout her over-60-year career.
Beyond just talking and singing about nature, what Dolly did to protect it is just as important.
Dolly was an avid philanthropic champion for environmental initiatives across Appalachia, giving her time, star power, and personal wealth to causes near and dear to so many of us. As in her music, she was unafraid to take on the challenges many thought to be too large or complex to tackle, seeing them as just the very things that needed her attention the most.
In 1991, Dolly partnered with the American Eagle Foundation to establish the Eagle Mountain Sanctuary, a facility for bald eagles and other birds of prey unable to survive in the wild. She participated in the opening of the sanctuary, and over the last 35 years has helped expose millions of people to the conservation and rehabilitation needs for these animals through her support.
Through programs at her famed Dollywood in Pigeon Forge, millions of park guests have been educated on issues of conservation and environmental need in a way only Dolly could provide. Using entertainment and style, Dollywood has acted as an ambassador for conservation across the Smokies, with guests taking the meaningful impact it has back home with them across the globe.
After the devastating 2016 Tennessee wildfires, Dolly established programs through her own charity and the Dollywood Foundation to provide assistance to impacted families as well as disaster cleanup. Dolly donated millions of dollars of her own alongside raising millions more through her fundraising effort, Smoky Mountains Rise. Without Dolly's direct stewardship, there's simply no telling how widespread the long-term environmental and community impacts of the wildfires may have been.
As we watch tributes to Dolly Parton roll in from all around the world, I hope we are able to find our own connections to the place that we call home, and are able to stand up for it when we know it's right. For Dolly, I find National Geographic's closing statement from their 2022 write-up on her life, music and legacy especially poignant.
"Parton is unafraid to stomp her glittery heel when it comes to caring for the environment -- her message is clear and she is increasingly amplifying it wherever she travels."
Thank you, Dolly, for all you gave us. We will always love you.
Griffin Bradley is a lifelong Wood County resident, graduate of West Virginia University, and a contributing author for Mid-Ohio Valley Climate Action.