Dolly Parton | Matt Connarton Unleashed

0:00 You know, we never mentioned it last week, the passing of Dolly Parton. Just didn't get to it. Obviously a great person and revered by everyone. You certainly didn't have to be a country music fan to be a fan of Dolly Parton. But I happened to see this come up. So I regret that we didn't get to it last week. But Digital Music News has a story up. So this is just kind of interesting and fun. This just went up yesterday. It's an article titled, Departing from Departing is a Go. Nashville Airport to be renamed after Dolly following unanimous vote.

0:31 So they're renaming this airport that's in Nashville. Dolly Parton will be memorialized in her hometown as Nashville Airport has unanimously voted to change its name to include the music and philanthropy icon. It says here, since Dolly Parton's passing last month at age 80, a petition to change the name of Nashville's airport... quickly made the rounds gaining thousands of signatures in days. The petition was actually originally made in January, but following Dolly's death, fans agreed that it was an excellent way to honor the vast impact of the beloved musician and philanthropist.

1:04 Okay. So this was actually, that's interesting. This was already in motion prior to her, to her passing. Uh, it says at a meeting on September 11, officials at the Metro Nashville airport authority voted unanimously for the name change. Um, Tennessee Governor Bill Lee, who backed the idea, said, quote, At a place where Tennessee welcomes the world, it is fitting that Nashville International Airport would bear the name of our state's favorite daughter and greet travelers with the enduring legacy of Dolly's music, generosity, faith, and kindness, unquote.

1:42 While it's only the first step in a lengthy bureaucratic process to fully enact the name change, Local elected officials, airport executives, and the authority board are all united on that front. Airport president and CEO Doug Krulin is authorized to immediately begin work to implement the change already. He confirmed that he had a very productive meeting with the Parton family earlier this week. Notably, making the change possible involved the airport authority voting against its own preexisting rule that prevents facilities from being renamed after people who have died until two years after their passing.

2:19 Dolly even weighed in on the proposal herself early last year, telling Belmont University, quote, I think that's probably more of a joke than anything. I mean, it does sound like a lot of fun to say your flight is departing from Nashville's departing. Unquote. The iconic singer, actor, and philanthropist passed away on August 25 at the age of 80 following a brief battle with cancer that her family revealed only after her death. They did so to honor her wishes to keep her condition private while she was still alive, in part to avoid worrying her fans.

2:54 That reminds me of when David Bowie passed away a number of years ago. It was kind of a similar thing where he had been battling cancer, but he had kept it And everyone around him had kept it so quiet, the few that knew. They kept it so quiet that it was a shock to wake up to the news because the general public had no idea that he was sick.