You Can Now Take a College Course on Dolly Parton’s Life

Dolly Parton’s had a pretty cool life. She penned one of music’s all-time great melodramatic love songs, “I Will Always Love You.” She’s picked up nominations at the Academy Awards, the Emmys, the Grammys and the Tonys. She has her own theme park. She lent her name to Dolly the cloned sheep. And she’s sold more than 100 million albums worldwide. Not too shabby for someone who grew up “dirt poor” in rural Tennessee.

Now, another honor Parton can add to the extensive list is having a college class made about her life. At the University of Tennessee, history honors students can take a course about Parton and her improbable success titled “Dolly Parton’s America: From Sevierville to the World.” Not surprisingly, her 1994 memoir Dolly: My Life And Other Unfinished Business will be required reading, along with books about life in Appalachia.

No word on whether films such as The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas and 9 to 5 will be a part of the curriculum, but it certainly wouldn’t hurt to include those in a class about Dolly.

Parton herself had a fairly endearing tweet about the whole thing and seemed to be genuinely enthused about such an honor.

From the girl voted in High School ‘least likely to succeed’ this sure is a blessing! https://t.co/3EnB8ixB4f

— Dolly Parton (@DollyParton) April 10, 2017

Find out more about the course here, and if you’re not a history honors student at UT, you can listen to Parton singing her wonderful love song (and other cuts from the Paste Cloud) below.