Remembering Dolly Parton + LA's Clinics for WHAT?

**Charlie Kirk** (0:03)
My name is Charlie Kirk. I run the largest pro-American student organization in the country, fighting for the future of our republic. My call is to fight evil and to proclaim truth. If the most important thing for you is just feeling good, you're going to end up miserable. But if the most important thing is doing good, you will end up purposeful. College is a scam, everybody. You got to stop sending your kids to college. You should get married as young as possible, have as many kids as possible. Go start a Turning Point USA college chapter. Go start a Turning Point USA high school chapter. Go find out how your church can get involved. Sign up and become an activist. I gave my life to the Lord in fifth grade. Most important decision I ever made in my life, and I encourage you to do the same. Here I am, Lord, use me. Buckle up, everybody. Here we go.
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**Charlie Kirk** (1:17)
All right. Welcome, everybody. It's August 26th, 2026 We're here at the Y-Refi Studios in Phoenix, Arizona. Welcome one and all. Blake, how are we doing this morning?

**Blake** (1:27)
We're doing good. We're doing good.

**Charlie Kirk** (1:28)
We lost an American icon last night and yesterday.
Dolly Parton has gone to be with the Lord. She was obviously a massive, huge country music star, but she eclipsed just being a country music star. She was an actress. She was a songwriter. By the way, she wrote the I Will Always Love You, which people remember as Whitney Houston's song, but she wrote it, performed it first. Elvis Presley tried to buy the rights from her. I found that out. I didn't know that. She wouldn't give up half the copyright. Whitney Houston ended up doing it for the Bodyguard with Kevin Costner. Became the number one all-time best-selling song of any female artist at the time. She was very smart, a very savvy businesswoman. It's interesting because there's a merging debates about the legacy of Dolly Parton.
The gay community wants to claim her, the communists want to claim her because she did that nine to five, what a way to make a living, and it's enough to make you crazy if you let it. An early critique on cubicle culture and women working their way up middle management. But she was always gracious. She was always diplomatic. She was a tremendous, tremendous philanthropist. She ends up dying with a net worth of over $650 million, and over her lifetime, she gave away over a half a billion dollars, and she still was worth $650 million.

**Blake** (2:54)
She gave to stuff, I think, she gave away literally, I think over 100 million books to children.

**Charlie Kirk** (3:02)
300 million, okay. Yeah, her imagination.

**Blake** (3:05)
Which, Imagination Library, I think. Which, if you have a baby, you can sign up for that. They will mail you a free book, so I just want to throw that out there. And when we were having this, it was discussed a lot yesterday. And it's a slightly ominous question. Is Dolly Parton the last American who has a more or less universally positive remembrance upon her passing?

**Charlie Kirk** (3:26)
It's interesting. So let me, I want to have that discussion.

**Blake** (3:28)
And send us emails. What did you think of it?

**Charlie Kirk** (3:29)
Yeah, because is she the last universally loved American icon? It's a question because what she did in her life, very few instances that you could count against her, where she got a little bit into the political weeds, but then she quickly maintained her independence. But she really did rise above the fray. She was born in 1946 in Appalachia, East Tennessee, the Smoky Mountain area.

**Blake** (3:55)
She was the fourth of 12 kids?

**Charlie Kirk** (3:56)
Yeah, the fourth of 12 kids. She was raised in a one or two room, depending on the report, cabin. It might have changed from one to two room. Maybe they put up a wall and had even less space. Cabin without electricity. It didn't have electricity. And unlike so many other entertainers or actors, people who become big stars, she never turned on her roots. She never said bad things about where she came from. As a matter of fact, she lifted up the fact that, yeah, they were poor, but they had class, and they were proud of who they were. They were proud Americans. She was never, the communists can't claim her. That's not true. She was a big time business woman. She opened Dollywood in 1986 It's got all kinds of roller coasters. She did that to generate income for her home area of East Tennessee. And it remains a very popular attraction to this day.