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Talk about an extrovert.
Dolly Parton once fooled a marching band into thinking she was old friends with their director — even though the two had never met.
Nathan Hickman, the band director at Parton’s alma mater, Sevier County High School, told The Post that he first met the country legend in 2013, when his students played a Dollywood concert in nearby Pigeon Forge.
“My students asked if I knew her,” said Hickman. “Of course, I said yes and that we had been friends for years… Truthfully, I had never met her.”
Apparently, Parton overheard the exchange and knew immediately how to make the high school band teacher into a hometown hero. “When she walked out on stage, she said, ‘Hey Nathan! I’m so glad you are at Sevier County now!’ and greeted me with a hug,” Hickman recalled. “The students’ minds were blown!”
Hickman later learned that the trick was a signature part of Parton’s stagecraft. “What they didn’t see was someone on the side of the stage giving Dolly the names of the people she was about to meet,” he said. “It’s still one of my favorite memories.”
Parton’s onstage glamour was thrilling, but it was her commitment to youth music programs that shone brightest for Hickman and his band. “We marched in front of her often, and she always stopped by to say hi [and] thank you, and tell the students she was so proud of them for representing our community so well,” he said.
“She was a tiny giant, and was genuine to herself at the same time.”
Besides funding Sevier County’s high school marching band and music program — a fact acknowledged by the tiny butterflies affixed to the band’s purple uniforms in honor of their bedazzled benefactor — Parton was also an anonymous donor to hundreds of primarily Black school districts across the American South. She also funded professional development programs, food banks and literacy programs for underserved communities and children worldwide.
To honor Parton’s legacy of giving — and her own time spent as a high school snare drummer — the Sevier County band has three Dolly Parton arrangements in permanent rotation: The 1980 working girl anthem “9 to 5,” the 1983 duet “Islands in the Stream” and the epic ballad “I Will Always Love You,” which Parton wrote and performed in 1974 and Whitney Houston took platinum in 1992.
That arrangement will get a teary moment on Friday, Sept. 11, when the band will perform it with their neighbors in the Jefferson County High School Band at the school’s halftime show. Band alumni are scheduled to join the concert.
“Dolly’s legacy is an example of generosity, and that legacy will live on through the students in the Sevier County High School Band,” said Hickman. “Our band program is successful today because of [her].”
Parton died Tuesday in Nashville after a brief battle with cancer. She was 80.
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