The priceless legacy of Dolly Parton lives on not only in the amazing music she produced, but through her love of reading and boundless generosity.
Staff, students and guests of Longfellow Liberal Arts School in Rock Island honored that latter legacy by celebrating the late country star on Friday, Sept. 25, with a special day centered around reading.
The school (4198 7th Ave.) of 250 K-6 students chose 9/25 because Dolly Parton made the 1980 song “9 to 5” famous, and the morning “Dolly Day” – focused on a half hour of guest readers and free books in several classrooms – was also a fun way to honor her love of reading and her longtime efforts to help put books into the hands of children through initiatives like the Imagination Library.
Parton died on Aug. 25, 2026 at age 80. Many school district staff Friday wore T-shirts with the Dolly quote: “I believe that if you read, you can do anything, dream anything, be anything.”
As part of the Friday celebration, Rock Island-Milan School District leaders and Board of Education members joined classrooms to read to scholars and celebrate the joy of reading.
After reading, they distributed books to Longfellow scholars, helping put even more books into their hands and encourage a lifelong love of reading.
Dr. Beth Summers, district assistant superintendent for teaching and learning, read the book “Each Kindness” (a favorite Dolly book) to the 6th-grade classroom of Rebecca Zimmerman, dressed in a big blonde wig, large pearl necklace, and black Dolly Parton T-shirt.
“The idea really was to highlight Dolly Parton and her Imagination Library books in a read-aloud of at least 14, 15 readers in all of the classrooms here at Longfellow Elementary on 9/25,” Summers said. “Certainly, this is a great opportunity launched by the building itself, and I was just one of the lucky readers chosen to be part of this day.”
She credited 2nd-grade Longfellow teacher Regina Knobloch for supplying her wig and jewelry on Friday morning.
“I'm a musician on the side, so certainly, I have been a Dolly Parton fan, and I've been a fan of her message because her message has really been one of warmth and curiosity about others and a lack of judgment,” Summers said, “So even though we see her as a performer, we see her dressed up on stage, we see her with a strong message for young ladies to empower themselves and for our young men as well to be part of a system of change because Dolly Parton is always about looking forward to the next opportunity for change.”
Choosing kindness
The book she read is about a new student who comes to school and is treated poorly, ostracized and not welcomed.
“When that student leaves and the teacher has an opportunity to say, you know, kindness is like a ripple, and those kindnesses ripple out from their initial spot to all of the opportunities for kindness to touch others, that happens to be an issue when you have a new student that comes into a school,” Summers said. “And so the narrator gives us an inside view of what it felt like to have that opportunity to be kind and then choose to not be kind.”
She loves the concept of Imagination Library, which serves children from birth to age 5, and has gifted 332 million free books since its inception 31 years ago.
“Language development starts first in the home. And Dolly Parton certainly acknowledged that by not sending the books to a location outside of the school, but sending them directly to every home, thereby creating that library within each home,” Summers said. “Reading was possible even if resources were not there. The books showed up in the mail. The books were available for every home to start their home library so that parents could be part of early literacy with their own library.
"And certainly Dolly curated that library to include books like ‘Each Kindness’ that also had a message behind them.”
“We hope that the Imagination Library outlives Dolly's personal life and is part of that legacy,” she added. “And certainly that is something that we're looking to continue to partner with any sort of organizations that improve early literacy.”
Each classroom was given a bag of books from which students could choose to take one. Before Summers read her book, she talked to the students about Parton’s illustrious career.
“Dolly Parton was definitely part of a bigger-than-life message,” she said, citing a Barbara Walters interview, when she called Dolly “a hillbilly.”
“Instead of taking that insult and making it her own, she instead changes the definition of what a hillbilly might be,” Summers said. “She responds in her answer by saying, well, some might call me a hillbilly. However, my people are proud. They're kind. They take care of each other. They work together as a community. And so she offers a different definition.
“And so that, it was that sort of message that was often part of how Dolly handled questions about who she was and what she stood for. She giggled. We all remember her giggle. And she would have a nice response,” she recalled Friday. “And she was a very funny woman, to promote a different way of thinking. And I think that's really at the heart of Dolly's message. How can we be a community together?”
“I think that aligns with her community message, because if there hadn't been a message in her roots about how our community functions as a team and how that team works together despite our differences, I don't know that we would have seen her represent community in all of the various ways that she was a philanthropy-minded person,” Summers noted.
Color and inspiration fill school
Longfellow got a grant from the district’s FACE program (family and community engagement) for the books, said organizer Steve Inman, Longfellow special education teacher, who created Dolly Day, including lots of sparkly pink decorations and balloons.
“Since 1995, she's given away millions of books to children, and we just feel like that's so special. That's so special that her father couldn't read or write, so that's the reason why she started it,” he said. “We wanted to have every student here receive a book. So we wrote a grant and our district FACE team provided a book for every single kid to get so they can go home and have their parents read it, their siblings read it, just read it with somebody. We’re a firm believer here at Longfellow that every child deserves a book and we want to be able to provide those for them.”
Inman is hopeful the district will get support to be part of Imagination Library, which used to be funded years ago by United Way Quad Cities, but that expired.
“Which is very sad. But one of the things we do here at Longfellow is we have the Scholastic Book Fair come, and Augustana has been very good to us,” he said. “In the spring, Augustana purchases a new book for every single student here at Longfellow. So we have this event here that is giving every kid another book, and then in the spring we'll have Augustana.”
Inman said it’s important to focus on pre-K literacy, since “it ignites their imagination. It just sparks their wonder and their intelligence of being able to put words into motion,” he said.
“The more that they read, the more that their brain is able to imagine things that they can't imagine. You know, a lot of our students come from low-income families, and it's incredible to give them a free book and say, hey, did you read your book? And they're like, it was about blank. And it's like, that's incredible. Now what do you think about that? So opening the discussion of what they're reading to their lives is just great.”
From Tennessee to the world
In 1995, Parton launched the Imagination Library, to benefit the children of her home county in East Tennessee.
Dolly’s vision was to foster a love of reading among her county’s preschool children and their families. The new program gave each child a specially selected book each month. By mailing high quality, age-appropriate books directly to their homes, Dolly wanted children to be excited about books and to feel the magic that books can create. Moreover, she could ensure that every child would have books, regardless of their family’s income.
The program sends three million books per month to kids in the U.S., Canada, the United Kingdom, the Republic of Ireland and Australia.
The Imagination Library partners with Local Program Partners who help bring the program to cities, towns and communities around the world. Local Program Partners can be businesses, school districts, small or large organizations, or simply individuals who share in the mission and purpose of the Imagination Library.
The partners are responsible for enrolling children who live within the geographical area they offered the program in. They promote their local programs online and at events. While the Imagination Library negotiates wholesale pricing for the books, local partners are responsible for securing funds to cover that cost, according to the program website. Books are 100% free to enrolled children because their partner has secured funds to cover the cost of the books and the shipping fees.
Rock Island Public Library director Angela Campbell said the Rock Island Library Foundation is willing to be the fiscal agent for Rock Island County. They are currently working through some logistics and hope to start a fundraising campaign soon.
Aledo-based Mercer County Better Together has been sponsoring the program for Mercer County children since December 2019. As of today, there are 464 children registered to receive books in Mercer County, and 470 children have graduated from the program, board member Tarah Sipes said. Since then, over 25,600 books have been mailed through that partnership.
The Geneseo Public Library also partners with Imagination Library to participate in the program. Riverdale, Iowa also has a local program partner.
This story was produced by WVIK, Quad Cities NPR. We rely on financial support from our listeners and readers to provide coverage of the issues that matter to the Quad Cities region and beyond. As someone who values the content created by WVIK's news department, please consider making a financial contribution to support our work.
