Published Aug 25, 2026, 3:03 PM EDT
The country music legend and philanthropist spent her life helping service members and military families, through fundraising and literacy.
Dolly Parton, the country music icon whose career spanned more than six decades of songwriting, acting and philanthropy, died Tuesday, Aug. 25, at age 80, her family announced. Parton sold more than 100 million records and won 11 Grammy Awards, including a Lifetime Achievement Award, during a career that produced songs such as “Jolene,” “Coat of Many Colors,” “9 to 5” and “I Will Always Love You." Her work also reached the military community through performances for service members, patriotic music, USO programming and literacy efforts serving military children. Parton never served in uniform, but her association with the military endured long enough for the Air Force to put her image on a KC-135 Stratotanker. “I first went on the road with Dolly as a kid, getting a taste of the road life in the early 1980s," Parton's nephew, Brian Seaver, said in a video announcement of her death posted on Instagram. "Dolly opened doors not just for me but for her entire family to reach the potential we didn’t even know was possible. "Dolly also opened doors for generations of singers, songwriters, musicians and dreamers from every walk of life and across every continent. By her example, we believed that anything is possible. She never saw a door she couldn’t open, and the doors she opened made and changed history." The Air Force’s ‘Miss Dolly’ In September 2004, Parton visited McGhee Tyson Air National Guard Base in her home state of Tennessee to unveil nose art bearing her likeness on a KC-135 assigned to the 134th Air Refueling Wing. The aircraft was named “Miss Dolly.” Parton autographed the artwork and performed several songs for airmen and their families during the event, according to an Air National Guard photo record preserved by the Defense Visual Information Distribution Service.
