The way Kenny Rogers’ whole face lights up the moment he hears Dolly Parton’s voice coming from offstage.
I have always loved this performance so much.
In 1988 Dolly Parton pulled every 7th and 8th grader in Sevier County into a room and told them to pick a buddy.
She made them sign a contract.. if BOTH graduate, she hands you both $500. One fails, nobody gets paid.
The county dropout rate went from 35% to 6%.
She handed out the checks herself.
In 1989 she offered $500 to every kid in the county who wanted to go to the local college.
When Gatlinburg burned in 2016, she sent 900 families $1,000 a month for six months.
You've probably heard that part.
Here's the part you haven't:
The fund raised more than expected, so she showed up in May and handed every one of those families another $5,000 on top.
Then she quietly put $3 million into the recovery group that handles the years after the news trucks leave.
She built her county an entire hospital.
She played a benefit concert in 2007, Dollywood and the Stampede matched it, and LeConte Medical Center opened in 2010 with a birthing unit and a women's center in it.
In 2022 she started covering 100% of tuition, books, and fees for Dollywood employees.
Full-time, part-time, AND seasonal.
In 1991 she paid for a bald eagle sanctuary because the birds couldn't be released back into the wild, no press release.
And when Hurricane Helene came through here in Western North Carolina, she wrote a personal check for $1 million and her companies matched it.
She didn't owe North Carolina anything, but she helped us anyway.
She started the Imagination Library because her daddy couldn't read or write. Before he passed, he told her it was the most important thing she ever did.
Rest in Peace, Dolly 🇺🇸
They put a German Shepherd in charge of babysitting a group of Doberman puppies.
I love how he just lays down, rolls over, gets dog piled, and then does it again… I could watch this shit all day. Lol
Spider-Man 3 originally had a deleted scene where Flint disguises himself as a sandcastle so his daughter could still play with him.
It was meant to show that beneath Sandman’s monster-like appearance, he was still just a desperate father trying to save Penny.
Sony cut it.
Activist: "Wool is cruel. The sheep should be left alone."
Farmer: "Alone where?"
Activist: "In a sanctuary."
Farmer: "Doing what."
Activist: "Just being a sheep."
Farmer: "Sheep have been bred for ten thousand years to grow a fleece that doesn't stop. If I don't shear her, she overheats, gets fly strike, and dies in her own coat with maggots eating her from the skin down."
Activist: "Then breed sheep that don't grow wool."
Farmer: "We did. They're called mouflon. They live on cliffs in Sardinia and would last forty minutes on a Welsh hillside before something ate them."
Activist: "I just don't think we should use animals for clothing."
Farmer: "What's your jumper made of."
Activist: "...recycled polyester."
Farmer: "Plastic, then. Sheds microfibre into the washing machine every wash. The fibres go through the filter, into the river, into the fish, into you. When you're done with it, it sits in a landfill for four hundred years. My sheep's fleece composts in a hedge in eighteen months and grew back on her this spring."
Activist: "But the sheep didn't consent."
Farmer: "She was lying down with her eyes closed when I finished. She got up and went back to eating. I'd suggest you ask her how she feels, but she's busy, and I think she's already given her answer."
A man ignored the no-smoking signs and lit a cigarette in the beluga interaction area – until a beluga whale ended the stunt with a perfectly aimed jet of water that extinguished the cigarette on the spot.