Country star Garth Brooks has shared the sweet way he will continue to honor the late icon Dolly Parton every year.
Parton’s death at 80 was announced Tuesday by her nephew, Bryan Seaver, following a “brief battle with cancer,” her publicist later announced.
Brooks, who runs Low Places Bar & Honky-Tonk in Nashville with his wife, the country singer Trisha Yearwood, announced on his website that the bar will honor Parton on September 25 by declaring the date “Dolly Day.”
He said the choice of date is a nod to Parton’s hit “9 to 5.” The couple plans to make “Dolly Day” an annual event at the honky tonk, with the bar’s earnings from the day going to Parton’s Imagination Library, her non-profit dedicated to children’s education and literacy.
“Whatever the cash register says at the end of the day is going to Dolly’s passion,” Yearwood said. “This is 100 percent about Dolly and her love for children’s literacy.”
open image in gallery“Dolly may be the perfect example of if you spend your whole life loving, you WILL live forever,” Brooks said.
Parton’s Imagination Library program mails a new, free book to children from around the world, from birth until they begin kindergarten.
Parton funded the project in memory of her father. “My own father didn’t get a chance to go to school,” she told CNN in 2016. “He couldn’t read and write, and that hindered him a great deal because he was so smart. It really bothered him a lot.”
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At the time of her death, Parton’s Imagination Library was mailing books to almost 850,000 children each month in 1,600 communities across the U.S., Canada, the U.K., Australia and the Republic of Ireland.
Brooks, best known for hits including “Friends in Low Places” and “The Dance,” was a longtime colleague of Parton’s in the country music industry, and the pair co-hosted the 58th Academy of Country Music Awards together in 2023.
open image in galleryBrooks’s announcement comes after Tennessee State Senator Jessie Seal announced that he’s proposing a bill to designate September 25 as “9 to 5 Day” in Tennessee, Parton’s birthplace and home.
Seal said Parton “will go down as one of the most legendary Tennesseans of all time. Not only will her music stand the test of time, but so will her legacy of faith and kindness. She embodied the true Volunteer State spirit like no other.
“While every day is a fitting day to honor Dolly, ‘9 to 5 Day’ will give Tennesseans an opportunity each year to set aside a little extra time to listen to one of her most iconic songs and reflect on the once-in-a-century legend,” Seal continued.
After Parton’s death, Yearwood — known for the 1991 hit “She’s in Love with the Boy” — said in a tribute: “There aren’t words to describe what you mean to the world, Dolly. What I do know is that you have always been a light, and now you are shining brighter than we can imagine.”
open image in gallery“Our job now is to keep that light alive. WWDD? Love one another. You walked the walk. To say your energy in this life will be missed is an understatement. We will always love you,” she said.
Tributes have poured in from across the entertainment industry in the aftermath of the “Jolene” singer’s death.
Singer Miley Cyrus, Parton’s goddaughter, remembered her “Aunt Dolly” as an “angel,” saying, “I will always love her and want to make her proud.”
Cyrus’s dad, country star Billy Ray, who toured with Parton in 1992, said: “Dolly recently sent me a beautiful message, telling me she loved me with her whole heart. I will always love her in the same way ….. with my whole heart … and I always will.”