Ronda Rich

Syndicated Columnist

When I was 15, I met Dolly Parton for the first time. By then, she was already a star with hits like “Jolene”. She was not, however, the superstar she would become.

My sister, a journalist in Nashville, was friends with Dolly, which is how I came to meet her. She was incredibly beautiful with the most unbelievable complexion I have ever seen. There aren’t words to properly describe her skin. It glistened like glass and was pure white, as though sun had never touched it.

For a couple of days, I was around Dolly but spent more time with her Mama and sisters. One day, I noticed her Mama watching me closely. Finally, she said, “You are just like Dolly when she was 15. Exactly. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

Too bad I haven’t been like Dolly as a grown-up. She was a force of nature. She told me several years ago that she got up around 3 a.m. every morning. She spent time with the Lord, then read a book and wrote songs.

Dolly was a lover of books as demonstrated by the 250 million books she’s given to children.

“I read a lot,” she said. “What do you read?” I asked. “Different types of books. I like to read about people’s lives. I don’t read non-fiction as much but only because I want to learn as much as I can.”

After that conversation, I sent her a book entitled “Will You Miss Me When I’m Gone.” I knew she would love the story of the famed Carter family who came out of the Virginia backwoods to become the first superstars of country music in the 1930s. Mother Maybelle and her in-laws formed the group. Later, Maybelle’s daughters joined the group. Daughter June married Johnny Cash.

Dolly once said to me, “We’re two peas in a pod.” The reason was, mainly, that we clung to our Appalachian roots. She came from East Tennessee and my folks came from over the ridge. We both continued to pronounce words as the Scotch-Irish speak and did not switch to conventional language.

A few years ago, Tink and I had an opportunity to work with Dolly on a project at NBC. We were flying to Los Angeles to meet with her.

“Tink, before we have this meeting, we need to go to Dollywood. Trust me. It’ll mean the world to her.”

On a spring morning, we were standing in the ticket line when Tink’s manager called.

“Can you talk?” Tink replied, “Sure. I’m standing in line for tickets at Dollywood.”

His manager exclaimed, “What? Where’s my client?”

We attended every show at Dollywood. And, sure enough, the next week during the meeting on the Warner Brothers lot, when Dolly discovered we had been to Dollywood, she was joyous. She asked about every show, particularly the one that featured her family.

Dolly united people. She didn’t judge. But, she stayed true to the young girl who graduated from high school one day then boarded a bus for Nashville the next day. God, family, and the old-timey ways of the mountains were planted deep in her heart. She cooked chicken and dumplings, fried green tomatoes, turnip greens, and all the foods of her childhood.

Her generosity was unmatched. When her beloved Smoky Mountains was ravaged by fire, she gave money and conducted a telethon to raise even more.

Her faith was unbendable. She prayed about everything and sometimes went against her advisors because “This is what the Lord told me to do.” She was never wrong.

I often joked that if you went to work for Dolly, you died working for her because she was so wonderful.

“How do you keep people like that?” I asked her.

She shrugged. “I just let them do their job. If we disagree, we talk about it, but they know we will do what I want.”

Dolly’s death is a grievous loss. She cannot be duplicated.

Ronda Rich is the bestselling author of the Stella Bankwell series.