Dolly Parton died Tuesday in Nashville at age 80, her family announced. The same afternoon, Gov. Mike DeWine ordered the flags of the United States and Ohio flown at half-staff at every public building in the state, effective immediately until sunset on Sept. 1.
The proclamation honors “the life and legacy of Dolly Parton.” The DeWines were fans in the ordinary sense, right down to naming their springer spaniel after her. First Lady Fran DeWine also spent the last seven years building the Ohio program that carries Parton’s name into hundreds of thousands of mailboxes every month.
“Mike and I are deeply saddened to learn of the death of Dolly Parton. She touched countless lives in profound and meaningful ways,” Fran DeWine said in a statement. “Because of Dolly’s vision and generosity, over one million Ohio children have received free books in the mail, totaling nearly 28 million books.”
A program that reaches all 88 counties
Those books come from Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library of Ohio, which mails enrolled children one free, age-appropriate book every month from birth until their fifth birthday, at no cost to families.
Parton started the Imagination Library in 1995 in Sevier County, Tennessee, where she grew up, and she often said her father’s inability to read and write inspired it. The program now serves about 1 in 6 American children under 5.
Ohio’s statewide version launched in August 2019 after Fran DeWine watched her grandchildren tear into the books their local Greene County program mailed them. Before then, only about 13 percent of eligible Ohio kids had access. By November 2020 the program covered all 88 counties. Ohio has since become the national leader, with about 60 percent of eligible children in the state enrolled, the highest rate in the country, according to the Statehouse News Bureau.
Ohio was also the first state to let parents enroll newborns through birth certificate paperwork, and signup is now offered at every birthing hospital in the state. The current state budget puts $8 million toward the program, and drivers can chip in through the state’s Dolly Parton license plates, whose fees help fund the monthly mailings.
Dolly Parton Day in Ohio
Parton came to Columbus on Aug. 9, 2022, to celebrate the program’s statewide reach, and DeWine declared the date Dolly Parton Day in Ohio. The year before, Columbus-based Jeni’s Splendid Ice Creams released a Strawberry Pretzel Pie flavor with Parton, with sales benefiting the Imagination Library. So many people ordered the limited run of 5,000 pints that Jeni’s website crashed. A decade ago, she headlined the Ohio State Fair with a show on Aug. 2, 2016.
The books will keep coming. A spokesperson for Parton’s Dollywood Company confirmed the Imagination Library will continue mailing books to enrolled children after her death. Ohio families with kids under 5 can sign up any time at ohioimaginationlibrary.org.
