Staff Photo by Dan Henry / The Chattanooga Times Free Press- 3/24/16. Dolly Parton performs one on one interviews to announce her new album “Pure and Simple” and new wooden roller coaster while at Dollywood in Pigeon Forge, TN, on March 24, 2016.NASHVILLE – A Tennessee legislator says he’s both stunned and delighted by the response he’s getting in Tennessee, the U.S. and from all over the world on his effort to commission and place a statue of country music legend, actress, businesswoman and humanitarian Dolly Parton on the state Capitol’s grounds.
“It shocked me the amount of the response we’ve had,” Rep. John Mark Windle, D-Livingston, said Tuesday after his bill to provide for a privately funded statue of the 75-year-old Sevier County native cleared the House Naming & Designating Committee that he chairs on a voice vote.
Tennesseans “love Dolly Parton, not just because she’s a great musician,” Windle added. “She’s a caring, compassionate and just a decent person. She takes care of her community, she takes care of her state. And she does it selflessly.”
The Senate version has not yet been filed, but Sen. Paul Bailey, R-Sparta, said in an interview he will “absolutely” introduce the upper chamber’s version prior to the Senate’s bill filing deadline this week.
Windle points to Parton’s work in areas such as her Imagination Library, a book gifting program that has mailed millions of free, high-quality books to children from birth until they begin school. The program includes not just Tennessee but the rest of the U.S. as well as several other countries.