Smoky Mountain News

Country Superstar Dolly Parton returns to her home town this Friday, May 7, for the 25th annual Dollywood parade The parade will be start on the Parkway in Pigeon Forge at traffic light #7 at 6pm and travel to light #3.

Ms. Parton will serve as Grand Marshall, leading a contingent of Dollywood performers, bands from area schools and floats from local attractions and businesses. Clowns and other marchers will be along throwing candy to spectators.

Ms. Parton grew up and attended school in Sevier county before leaving for Nashville to realize her country music dreams. A regular performer on the Cas Walker shows as a little girl, Dolly never forgot her roots. In 1986 Parton became co-owner of Silver Dollar City and changed the name to Dollywood. Her reasoning for such a venture? As Dolly says, “I always thought that if I made it big or got successful at what I had started out to do, that I wanted to come back to my part of the country and do something great, something that would bring a lot of jobs into this area.”

To that end she has been quite successful, doubling the size of Dollywood to a total of 150 acres. New attractions this year include Adventure Mountain, a mountain side obstacle course including four courses with varying degrees of difficulty. For smaller children there will be a kids play area called “Camp Teachittoome”.

Frequently in the past Dolly has also made surprise appearances insider her park the day after the parade. With this being the 25th anniversary of Dollywood, the park has been surprising guests on its own with prizes given away randomly during the season.

Special Dollywood packages are available to celebrate the 25th anniversary. (more…)