Finally, something we can all agree on.
Earlier this year Tennessee legislators introduced a measure to rename Nashville’s BNA airport after President Donald Trump, which as you may imagine got some people very excited and other downright infuriated.
That effort has stalled out but another is picking up steam with the public and it’s high time some representative, state senator, of maybe the governor himself, gets on board.
A petition on change.org was started around the time of the Trump International conversation to instead rename Nashville’s airport after someone who’s universally loved – and is actually from Tennessee.
Dolly Parton International Airport
Just under 47,000 people (including me) have signed a petition to rename BNA after the Queen of Country herself, Dolly Parton. There have also been 1,013 monetary contributions made to the campaign to assist in pushing the message far and wide.
The petition, started by Lydia Popovich and Dan Dion, reads:
“As proud citizens of Tennessee, we are motivated by our deep-rooted admiration for the national treasure and Tennessee legend, Dolly Parton. She is not only a celebrated artist who encourages love, acceptance, and goodwill through her music, but also a philanthropist, known for her countless contributions to society. It is only fitting that an institution as significant as Nashville International Airport carries the name of such a remarkable woman.
Dolly has made substantial impacts on thousands of lives, especially through her Imagination Library program, which has gifted over 100 million books to children since it began in 1995. Dolly’s philanthropic efforts, her outstanding influence in the music industry, and the love she has instilled in our hearts through her actions and songs, truly make her a deserving candidate to have the Nashville International Airport named after her.
We request that the airport’s name be changed to Dolly Parton International Airport to honor an icon who has given so much to our state and to the world. Sign the petition to make this change a reality. We could all be Departin’ from Parton!!”
You can find the petition here and I suggest taking just a minute to add your signature.
Why Dolly Deserves It
If we wanted to start listing just Dolly’s musical accomplishments it’d be plenty to earn naming rights of an airport (6 decade career, 25 number one’s, 44 Top 10 country albums, 11 Grammy’s from 50 nominations, 10 CMAs, National Medal of Arts, Country Music Hall of Fame, and Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, just to name a few) but it’s her philanthropic work and business acumen that truly sets her apart from the rest of us mere humans.
Dolly launched The Dollywood Foundation in 1988. It was initially just meant to be for her home county of Sevier, Tennessee and its goal was to reduce high school dropout rates. She then rolled out the “Buddy Program”, which gave $500 to every seventh and either grader who finished high school. It was extremely successful, reducing the dropout rate from 35% to 6%. The next year, she began offering a $500 scholarship ($1,300 today) to any student in Sevier County who wanted to attend Hiwassee College.
While education forever remained important to her (more on that later), it wasn’t the only cause she supported. In 1991, she opened the Eagle Mountain Sanctuary at Dollywood, a 30,000 square foot aviary managed by the American Eagle Foundation to house a large collection of “non-releasable” bald eagles at a time when the species was still very much in danger of extinction.
In 1995, she rolled out perhaps her most well-known charitable organization, the Imagination Library, which began sending one book per month to each student in Sevier country from their birth until their first year of school. This has since expanded dramatically, having now sent over 270 million books to children all over the United States, Canada, the UK, Australian, and Ireland.
At the turn of the millennium, the Dollywood Foundation began offering a $15,000 scholarship to five high school seniors in Sevier County who “have a dream they wish to pursue and who can successfully communicate their plan and commitment to realize their dreams.”
On top of all these programs her foundation has started, she’s also quite liberal when it comes to writing checks with her own money to help those in need.
She made a $1 million donation to Vanderbilt University Medical Center in honor of her niece who was treated for leukemia there, gave $1 million to coronavirus research at a time when no one knew what was happening, sent another $1 million to Vanderbilt University Medical Center to help pediatric infectious disease research, gave a total of $3 million to victims of Hurricane Helene, and sent $1 million to the Salvation Army, and that’s just the one’s I was able to easily find…
Oh yeah, she also was awarded $100 million to use for her charitable causes from Jeff Bezos, which we can be well assured was sent to the proper places…
All of this work has lead to her practically having an open invite to receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom whenever she wishes. She turned down Joe Biden and Donald Trump at this point because she d0esn’t want to appear partisan in anyway, which is something I think we can all appreciate in these times of team-picking.
Safe to say, Dolly has absolutely earned the right to have Nashville’s airport named after her. It’s truly the least we can do.
Again, here’s a link to the petition if you wish to sign your name to it. Does it guarantee that anything will come from it? Nope, but if we aren’t willing to participate in the process we can’t complain when things don’t go our way.
Cheers to you, Dolly.
