BusinessTN

Dolly Parton has a nickname, the “Iron Butterfly,” that is well-earned and is fitting on a number of levels having far more to do with business than the sentiment represented in her early hit, “Love is Like a Butterfly.” Years into a career that began when Parton, now 60 years of age, was only nine, she is still flying high in the music world with an Oscar-nominated song, “Travelin’ Thru,” for the movie Transamerica. Parton is also featured in a duet with Brad Paisley, “When I Get Where I’m Going,” that peaked at number one and, at press time, had been on the charts for 24 weeks. Her Dollywood Theme Park is Tennessee’s number one tourist attraction. And her Imagination Library is a force to be reckoned with on the literacy and philanthropic fronts, and stands to influence the state of Tennessee in a number of ways for decades to come.

Born Dolly Rebecca Parton in 1946 in Locust Ridge, Tenn., the fourth of 12 children, Parton grew from a small-town girl appearing on local television at age nine to an icon who is internationally known and beloved. She began her songwriting career as a little girl with big dreams—she has written over 3,000 songs recorded by numerous artists—and in 1999, those dreams were realized in part when she was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame.

Parton’s chart-topping songs include 25 number one country singles, 55 top 10 country hits and eight top 40 pop hits—that includes 111 chart singles across several genres. She has earned 25 gold (more than 500,000 sold), platinum (more than one million sold), and double platinum (more than two million sold) records with over 100 million records sold overall, and her total of 41 top 10 country albums is more than any other artist has achieved.

The awards tally seems endless: Parton holds the record for the number of awards for a female artist—including seven Grammy Awards (with 42 nominations), 10 Country Music Association Awards, and five Academy of Country Music Awards. She has two Oscar nominations for best song and has been nominated five times for Golden Globe awards and numerous times for People’s Choice Awards. She has an Emmy nomination to her credit, as well.

Since 1980, Parton has performed in a string of movies, the best-known of which include 9 to 5 (one of 1980’s top-grossing films), The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas, Steel Magnolias and Rhinestone. She has also appeared in a number of made-for television movies. Her books include an autobiography, Dolly Parton: My Life and Other Unfinished Business, and Coat of Many Colors, a book for children based on her famous song of the same name.

Parton would be a force to reckon with were her activity and success limited to music and film. But the Iron Butterfly has always exhibited an entrepreneurial streak, particularly in business ventures that bring much-needed revenue to both her hometown and Tennessee. Such ventures include the Dollywood theme and water parks in Pigeon Forge and the Dixie Stampede Companies, a chain of equestrian dinner theatres in Pigeon Forge, Branson, Orlando and Myrtle Beach. Sandollar Productions, operated with Parton’s manager, Sandy Gallin, has produced movies that include Father of the Bride (I and II) and Straight Talk, and television series such as Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel.

Also under the Parton business umbrella: a separate production company called Southern Light Films, and a record label called Blue Eye Records. Her song publishing company, Velvet Apple Music, owns the copyrights for all of her original compositions save those from her Monument label years (1965-1967). She also owns Song Yard Music, a publishing company for songs written by her friends and relatives. Former business ventures included a Revlon cosmetics line and a line of wigs.

Dollywood is Parton’s best known business achievement. “Sevier County is not unlike other southern Appalachian counties—counties of great need and with extreme poverty and isolation,” David Dotson, executive director of the Dollywood Foundation says. “Granted,” he adds, “with the creation of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park—its entrance is right in Sevier County—there was an embryonic tourist industry.” But Dotson says, a qualitative change happened when Parton created Dollywood, her 125-acre theme park located in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee, 35 miles southeast of Knoxville, in 1986. Prior to Dollywood, the Rebel Railroad opened on the site in 1961. In 1970, the site became known as Goldrush Junction, and in 1977, the Herschend Brothers bought the park and renamed it Silver Dollar City. In 1986, Parton partnered with the Herschends, and the park was renamed Dollywood. “When I first went to Los Angeles,” Parton says, “I saw that Hollywood sign, and I just imagined what it would look like if it said Dollywood instead of Hollywood.”

When Parton joined the Herschends in the theme park business, she offered up more than her name—her entertainment know-how has helped boost the park’s attendance year after year. In 1986, after the park was renamed Dollywood, attendance increased 75% over the year before, its last season as Silver Dollar City, and has continued to increase each year.

“Dollywood is a privately owned company,” Pete Owens, public relations manager for the Dollywood Companies, says. “We don’t release gross receipts numbers, but Dollywood welcomed 2.38 million visitors to the theme park last year, and over 380,000 visitors to Dollywood’s Splash Country Water Adventure, at an average $40 dollar ticket price per visitor.”

Since Dollywood’s inception, the theme park has invested than $150 million in capital on the two parks in expansions and renovations, including the recent addition of the $7 million Thunderhead wooden roller coaster, and the $6.5 million Timber Tower Ride addition coming in 2006. According to Owens, from 2005 through 2007, over $30 million will be spent on continued improvements and additions to the theme park and water park.

Besides being Tennessee’s most visited tourist attraction, Dollywood ranks at number 25 among top theme parks in North America, as well as in the top 50 most attended theme parks worldwide. Dollywood’s Splash Country, which opened in 2001, ranks at number 15 on the most visited water parks list in North America.

Kay Powell, assistant director of the Pigeon Forge Department of Tourism, helps translate Dollywood’s effect on the community in terms of hard numbers. “The year Dollywood opened, in 1986,” she says, “gross business revenues in Pigeon Forge jumped 47% over 1985.” Dollywood is classified as an amusement revenue, and Powell says that amusement revenues in Pigeon Forge increased 63% from 1985 to 1986 with the opening of Dollywood.

“Dollywood is the engine that drives the train here in Pigeon Forge,” Powell says. “For 2005, gross total business done in Pigeon Forge was $777.6 million, an increase of 9% over 2004, and of that figure, amusement revenues alone totaled $100.8 million—an 8% increase over 2004.” For many years after Dollywood opened, Powell says, gross total business showed double-digit increases each year. “Even when the city of Pigeon Forge doesn’t have a new attraction, Dollywood does,” Powell says, “and that helps us and the state tourism industry, too, since tourists equate Dollywood with the two.”

As for Parton, she says she was not surprised at all by the theme park’s success. “I knew I had the name and the concept,” she says about her decision to go into the theme park business, “and it was just a matter of time before everything fell into place. I always believe that things happen when it’s their time to happen and, in this case, it all came together in 1986.”

For all her celebrity and economic impact on the state, Parton’s biggest contribution to the state’s economic engine, not to mention to the common weal in general, may well come in efforts to promote literacy. “Growing up in the hills of East Tennessee,” Parton says, “I saw all kinds of folks who had trouble reading and writing—including my own father. It made it real hard for them to make a living.” Parton’s response to the problem was her Imagination Library, a program she started in Sevier County.

In 1995, Parton developed the Imagination Library to help preschool children own their own collections of books. Once registered, each month of a child’s life, from birth until age five, the Imagination Library sends a book that has been carefully selected by a committee comprised of specialists in education, child development and early childhood literacy.

Any community wanting to replicate the program must use Parton’s Imagination Library, allow the Dollywood Foundation to manage the composition of the library and coordinate the ordering of the books, and use the mail system developed by the Foundation. Each local community is responsible for registering children and covering the costs involved, though not all communities are able to afford the administrative expenses.

“I raise funds, from private donors, to help distressed counties,” says Lady Jackson, president of the Governor’s Books from Birth Foundation. “They apply for a grant, and we use private funds to help with the program expenses. We are able to pay 100% of the funding for distressed counties to be involved with the program—and we’re helping the kids who need help the most.”

From its modest beginnings, the Imagination Library is now up and running statewide, and it has been adopted in 600 communities in 41 other states as well. “It’s always great to be in different parts of the country,” Dotson says, “and be able to talk about what is happening in Tennessee,” he says. “Our message—in no small part thanks to Dolly—is that we are a state that cares for its children.” Now, over ten years into the program, the Imagination Library initiative is exploding because of the joint efforts of Parton, her Dollywood Foundation and Governor Phil Bredesen. According to Jackson, Bredesen—inspired by Parton ’s efforts—made a campaign promise to take Parton’s literacy efforts statewide. Recognizing that the current crisis in public education and plummeting graduation rates have a multiplier effect on the loss of qualified individuals to fill jobs, the business community has stepped up in a big way.

According to Jackson, the Governor’s Books from Birth Foundation—through private donations from BellSouth, Caremark Rx, Bridgestone, Comcast, Dollar General and Delta Dental—has bought sets of 60 books for 448 pre-kindergarten classrooms and many Headstart classrooms. In the years to come, business leaders can only speculate on the impact of Parton’s efforts in the arena of literacy, but based on studies that quantify the impact of early reading and the extent to which frequent reading to children influences future literacy, the prognosis is promising. Like Parton’s own trademark butterfly symbol, her literacy efforts are now moving beyond the chrysalis stage into a rapidly replicating success story nationwide.

In a hundred years, there will likely be few present-day Volunteer State power brokers remembered by the masses for their impact on the state of Tennessee. A building here, perhaps, a presidential home there, but people will still be talking about Dolly Parton. Even with Parton’s considerable successes as an entertainer set aside, her literacy initiatives could help transform the future business climate of the state of Tennessee.

Parton is amazed and happy about the success of her homegrown initiative. When asked about what she might classify as the most rewarding aspect of her remarkable life, Parton says that it is hard to choose, but she’ll go along with her father’s assessment. “My father, not long before he passed away, told me that of all the things I have accomplished, he was most proud of the Imagination Library,” she says. “So I guess if he was most proud of that, well then, I am, too!” TN