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Dolly Parton is everything to everyone at Dolly Day in North Texas

By Sarah Hepola, The Dallas Morning News
Published: January 26, 2025, 6:02am
2 Photos
Alexa Estrada takes a spin while competing in a costume contest emceed by Vivienne Vermuth (onstage behind her) during Dolly Day at Truck Yard Dallas on Saturday, Jan. 18, 2025. (Smiley N.
Alexa Estrada takes a spin while competing in a costume contest emceed by Vivienne Vermuth (onstage behind her) during Dolly Day at Truck Yard Dallas on Saturday, Jan. 18, 2025. (Smiley N. Pool/The Dallas Morning News/TNS) Photo Gallery

DALLAS — “It costs a lot of money to look this cheap,” reads a marquee sign inside the Truck Yard in Lower Greenville. The Dolly Parton quote is the kind of zinger the brassy performer used on late-night talk shows in the ‘80s, never knowing future generations would stitch it on Etsy throw pillows and share it on Instagram like ancient wisdom.

“Dolly’s a national treasure!” says Jason Boso, owner of the Truck Yard, the laid-back bar and restaurant whose four locations (along with Boso’s Second Rodeo Brewing in the Fort Worth Stockyards) hosted Dolly Day on Jan. 18, the day before Parton’s 79th birthday. The Dallas event originated last year, inspired by Mrs. Roper Romps, a cult phenomenon in several American cities where attendees dress in caftans, oversized glasses and curly red hair like the actress Audra Lindley, aka Mrs. Roper on the ABC sitcom “Three’s Company.”

“We hope one day we’ll have 500 Dollys bouncing down Greenville Avenue,” Boso says.

From punchline to feminist hero

At 6 p.m. on a frigid Saturday, the original Truck Yard location is packed. Only a handful of the 600 or so have gone Full Dolly, but the attire is Dolly-inspired, lots of sparkles and cowboy boots and shades of pink. The bar is selling cocktails in big plastic cups with Dolly’s face on one side and “cup of ambition” on the other, a nod to the working-girl anthem, “9 to 5.”

“She’s an icon,” says Laura Horn, seated beside a table scattered with empty cups and two tiny pink cowboy hats from the Dolly-themed strawberry lemon drop shot. “She set the stage for strong independent female artists.”

“I’ve been obsessed with Dolly since I was a kid,” says her friend Tori Ayers, who once dressed up as Dolly for biography day at her elementary school, with socks stuffed inside a sequined dress. Her outfit tonight is more low-key, a Dolly T-shirt and the black fringe skirt she wore to a Taylor Swift concert. “So many people DM’ed me about this event, and I’m like, yes, I know!”

The emergence of Dolly Parton, ‘80s punchline, into a 21st-century feminist hero is a twist of pop culture perhaps best captured by the 2019 podcast “ Dolly Parton’s America.” Created by “Radiolab’s” Jad Abumrad, the nine-part series positions Parton as that rare artist able to bridge a partisan divide, queer-friendly enough for liberals and countrified enough for conservatives. She’s also one hell of a songwriter, a proto-Taylor Swift who has penned thousands of songs, including the chart-topping juggernaut, “I Will Always Love You.”

“Why would someone not like Dolly? She has the kindest way of putting someone in their place, and she looks fabulous doing it,” says Vivienne Vermuth, the evening’s official Dolly Parton impersonator. Vermuth slinks around the rambling patio and heated indoor space in a spangly purple dress and a towering platinum-blond wig. “This is 1982 Grand Ole Opry era, my favorite,” she says, gesturing to her outfit.

Like Greta Gerwig’s “Barbie,” Parton gives women a way to revel in hyper-feminine trappings without feeling confined by them. It’s as though the prickly dilemmas of second-wave feminism — plastic surgery, makeup, sex appeal — have resolved in a chirpy all-embracing maternal emblem of you-do-you.

“I like how open she is,” says Alexa Estrada, wearing a short platinum wig with a flower in the side and a long-sleeved pale-pink wrap dress she thrifted from Uptown Cheapskate. Estrada performs burlesque, and she sees a similar playfulness in Parton. “A classy sexuality” is how she puts it.

“She’s real,” says Angel King, warming herself by a fire pit on the back patio. “I mean, she’s very fake,” she says, referencing Parton’s penchant for wigs, rhinestones and plastic surgery, “but she’s real.”

From pop princess to philosopher

Four-year-old Eleanor Payne is a super-fan. “She’s obsessed with Dolly because of that book,” says her mother Trish Payne, pointing to “My Little Golden Book About Dolly Parton,” a slim illustrated children’s title with a cartoon Dolly playing a banjo on the cover. (So many kids love Dolly that Truck Yard locations in the Colony and Fort Worth had children’s categories in the costume contest.) Trish and her husband, James, bought the book at a store in Grapevine having no idea what they’d unleash. The rags-to-riches saga of a pretty blond who transforms into a major star reminds me of another girlhood fable.

“Is this like her Cinderella?” I ask Trish.

“I hope so!” Trish says.

At a time when Disney princesses can seem one-note, Dolly is nothing but versatile: Singer and actor and advocate, player of guitar and piano and pan flute, writer and performer. There is the sweet-faced Dolly of ‘70s publicity photos, and the tarted-up Dolly of the ‘80s and beyond. She contains multitudes.

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“I like her as a philosopher,” says Cole Bohner, wearing a long platinum wig, pink cowboy hat and oversized pink sunglasses with a Dolly Parton shirt. “What’s that line of hers? If you see someone without a smile, give ‘em yours.”

It should be pointed out that Bohner is a guy. Although Parton is a drag-queen favorite, Bohner’s look isn’t quite so committed. “Party City,” he says, explaining where he bought his outfit. “And this T-shirt my girlfriend bought for me.” He competed in last year’s costume contest and placed second. “I worry what losing again will do to me,” he says, as his friends around the picnic table crack up. This is clearly a joke, but also, maybe not? Later a friend of his will stop me in the crowd. “He’s seriously been talking about this all year.”

Costume show-down

Only seven audience members are brave enough to participate in the costume contest, lining up before the outdoor stage at 7 p.m. There are two categories: Dolly and Jolene, the mythical beauty Parton worries will steal her man in Parton’s song of the same name. The Jolenes wear racy animal prints and tight jeans and slit skirts, while the Dollys are white-blond and brightly colored, like a good-girl-bad-girl stand-off. Vivienne Vermuth goes down the line, placing her manicured hands on the shoulders of each contestant as the crowd applauds.

When Vermuth reaches Bridget Hughston, a dark-haired Jolene, Hughston comically readjusts her boobs in a tank top and then shimmies for the crowd.

Although Parton’s place in pop culture is vast, she will always be known for two very prominent assets. She turned a fixation on her breasts into a joke she could control. “People always ask me if they’re mine,” she’s said. “Yes, they are. All bought and paid for.”

So it’s no surprise to see boob humor in the costumes. The last contestant is Bohner, who has embellished his outfit with two balloons placed under his shirt. When it’s his turn, he whips his pink cowboy hat in the air, and the crowd roars.

The audience has spoken: Hughston and Bohner are the winners.

“This is my birthday!” says Hughston, as she holds her prize, which includes blond hair dye, Band-Aids (for all that cat-fighting) and a sash that reads, “Miss Steal Yo Man.”

Bohner is beside himself. “I don’t think I’ve ever been prouder of anything,” he says, showing me a framed and signed portrait of the Queen herself.

It’s a little odd that a dude with balloons under his shirt won a supremely feminine costume contest, but if any artist can appreciate a gimmick, it would be Dolly.

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