The exception…

Singer and Actress Dolly Parton shown at a party following the premiere of her movie ‘Nine to Five’ in Los Angeles, Dec. 12, 1980. (AP Photo/Harms, File)

Or, why a column that usually focuses on Philadelphia City Government is going to spend some time talking about Dolly Parton.

By Denise Clay-Murray

When I first started writing Hanging In The Hall, I made the decision to keep it as local as humanly possible.

While I write about some things that the folks in Harrisburg and Washington, D.C. are doing, it’s usually with an eye on how it’s going to impact Philadelphia. Things like, what are cuts to SNAP and Medicaid going to do to the city residents that depend on those things? And why is the Commonwealth’s budget always late and never includes any dedicated reoccurring funding for mass transit?

We have enough to deal within the Tri-State area without going elsewhere. Besides, if I want to write about a national topic, there are plenty of places that will let me flex those muscles.

But as there is with any rule, there are exceptions.

And one of those exceptions came in the form of a news alert on my phone last Tuesday morning, telling me, and the rest of the world, that musician/actress/philanthropist/ and all-around good person Dolly Parton had died. She was 80, and according to reports had been battling cancer.

(I hate cancer. Wanna hit it with a bag of hammers.)

Now, if you spend any time on social media, something I found myself doing a lot when the news of Parton’s death came out, you found out a few things.

You found out that she was an even more prolific artist than everyone thought. She wrote two of her best-known songs, “I Will Always Love You,” and “Jolene” on the same day. In fact, she thought her fairly prolific songwriting catalogue was one of the most important of her accomplishments.

You found out that she never forgot where she came from. While her work took her away from the town at the foot of the Great Smoky Mountains where she was born and raised, Parton never left home. While her amusement park Dollywood is a force for economic development for the Sevier County region, Parton’s Dollywood Foundation created programs that helped to increase the region’s high school graduation rates and provided help to families impacted by wildfires in the area.

But the thing that has stuck with me the most is that Dolly Parton was one of the few people out there that everyone liked. In fact, more than a few Black people had her on their “White people we don’t play about” list.

Part of the reason for that stems from Parton’s attitude toward music. While most people would have felt some kind of way about another singer doing a cover of one of their songs and turning it into the standard, Parton didn’t feel that way regarding Whitney Houston’s “I Will Always Love You” cover. In fact, she took the royalties she earned from it and turned them into economic development in a predominately Black community in Tennessee.

And then, there are the books. Youngsters all over the Delaware Valley find books from Parton’s Imagination Library in their mailboxes as part of the program, which provides books for children every month from birth to 5-years-old.

Next week, we’ll return to what Hanging In The Hall does best, which is chronicling what’s happening in Philly’s City Government.

But, since there are kids here in Philly that are probably reading their books from Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library, if you want to honor someone who personified the power of the written word, whether sung or read, feel free to make a donation to the following charities:

*Parton’s Imagination Library,: https://donate.imaginationlibrary.com/ and…

*You can also send some money to a charity that I’ve been giving $10 a month to for the past year, Nerds for Literacy. Author and content creator Tony Weaver Jr. created the non-profit Weird Enough to get books into school districts and young people that might not be able to get them otherwise. Go to https://weirdenough.com/nerdsforliteracy for more information.

Disclaimer: The views, thoughts, and opinions expressed in the article belong solely to the author, and not necessarily to the author’s employer, The Philadelphia Sunday SUN, the author’s organization, committee or other group or individual.