08/26/2026
We’ve spent much of the last day trying to find the right words for Dolly Parton. It felt strange to make her passing an occasion to turn attention toward ourselves, but it felt even more wrong to let the moment pass without acknowledging what she meant to this region—and to us.
We share in the grief that she’s gone. Dolly was one of those people who seemed almost immortal—not because we actually thought she would live forever, but because it was difficult to imagine a world without her in it.
At the Museum, we spend a lot of time talking about the people who came before us in Appalachia. We talk about their self-reliance, their ingenuity and their resilience, and we try to give people some sense of the spirit of the people who made this region what it is. In so many ways, Dolly shared in that mission—and she found countless ways to carry it out.
Through songs like “My Tennessee Mountain Home,” through exhibitions and shows that told the story of her childhood in the Smoky Mountains, and simply through the way she lived her life, Dolly showed Appalachia to the world. She never treated where she came from as something to overcome or leave behind. She celebrated it.
And she made the rest of us proud to be from here.
For decades, it wasn’t hyperbole to call Dolly Parton the most universally beloved person alive. There was something deeply satisfying about knowing that someone so loved all over the world hailed from Appalachia. She became, in many ways, our ambassador to the world. She was the very best of us.
And she was an inspiration to so many. She reminded us to dream big, to be unapologetically ourselves, and to never forget where we came from.
It’s difficult to even begin accounting for the ways she changed people’s lives. Some were small, but no less real: a song that meant something to you, a family trip to Dollywood, or simply one of the countless moments of joy she gave us over the years. Others were enormous. She helped millions of children learn to love reading. She helped students pay for college. She stepped up when people in this region lost their homes and needed help rebuilding their lives.
For all the places Dolly went and all that she accomplished, she never forgot Appalachia. She gave back to it again and again, and she left it far better than she found it.
Our hearts are broken, and we know yours are too. But over the last day, we’ve also been incredibly moved by the thousands upon thousands of stories people have shared about her—personal encounters, small kindnesses, family memories, and all the different ways Dolly touched people’s lives.
Taken together, they make the sheer amount of joy she brought to Appalachia—and to the world at large—impossible to fathom.
What a legacy.
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Photo by Jim Herrington.
