Nashville Is Doing Something Amazing to Celebrate Dolly Parton — and It’s the Most Tennessee Thing Imaginable

The case for honoring her this way is overwhelming. She recorded 50 albums across six decades. She charted 93 songs on the Billboard Hot Country list, had eight Top 40 hits on the Hot 100, and won 11 Grammys with 55 nominations — plus a Lifetime Achievement award in 2011. She starred in films from “9 to 5” to “Steel Magnolias,” earning an Oscar nomination for the former. And through it all, she built the Imagination Library — one of the most successful literacy programs in American history, putting books into the hands of millions of children regardless of their background or zip code.

Britain sent one of its own tributes — the Band of the Coldstream Guards played “9 to 5” outside Buckingham Palace. That image says everything about who she was and the size of the world she occupied.

There will be a vote. There will be paperwork. There will probably be a moment where some bureaucratic process slows things down.

But in the end, the airport that handles millions of people arriving in the Music City — the city that was central to her life and her legacy — should bear her name. Every traveler who lands there should know immediately where they are: the state of Dolly Parton, and everything she stood for.

Tennessee got this right. Do the vote. Change the name. Welcome to Dolly Parton International Airport. You’re going to love it here.