Dolly Parton’s influence felt in Mid-Missouri

COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)

Legendary country music singer and humanitarian Dolly Parton died after a bout with cancer, Parton’s team announced on Tuesday.

Nearly 170,000 children in Missouri benefitted from Parton’s Imagination Library, though the program had to stop taking in new enrollees in July after state budget cuts affected the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education.

Parton's legacy also includes her seven-decade long music career---selling more than 100 million records worldwide and earning an Oscar nomination.

Meredith Shaw --- a local country artist who has performed multiple tribute sets to Parton at The Blue Note in Columbia – told ABC 17 News that Parton’s life story showed her that her dreams were possible

“I'm from a very small rural Missouri town, you know, town of like it was 300 people when I was growing up smaller now. And you learned that Dolly Parton, the most-sparkly person in the world known worldwide, like she is also from a very small town with a large family,” Shaw said.

Shaw said a local tribute to Parton is in the works.