Dolly Parton Receives Public Service Award At L.A. Press Club Gala

Dolly Parton and Lester Holt pose prior to receiving their LA Press Club honors. Photo: Gary Leonard

Dolly Parton was honored with the Bill Rosendahl Public Service Award by the Los Angeles Press at the 60^th SoCal Journalism Awards Gala in LA on Sunday evening.

The event, held at the Millennium Biltmore Hotel, highlighted Parton’s philanthropic efforts of her Imagination Library, the book gifting organization that has mailed over 100 million books to children in Australia, Canada, the U.K. and U.S., as well as her Smoky Mountains Rise telethon, which raised more than $12.5 million dollars for her My People Fund and provided financial assistance to victims of the massive wildfires that impacted Gatlinburg, Tennessee in 2016.

The awards gala, which was attended by over 500 journalists and media executives, also honored NBC News’ Lester Holt, LA Times Business Editor Kimi Yoshino and Saudi Arabian Blogger Raif Badawi. Holt received the Joseph M. Quinn Award for Lifetime Achievement, Yoshino the President’s Award for impact on media and Badawi the Daniel Pearl Award for courage and integrity in journalism.

Parton is currently working on a collaboration with Linda Perry on the upcoming soundtrack for the film Dumplin’. Perry produced the album and produced and wrote the film’s score, and Parton is executive producer. Together, they co-wrote six new songs for the project. Dumplin’ , starring Jennifer Aniston & Danielle MacDonald, is based on the best-selling book of the same name by Julie Murphy, about a girl who struggles to find herself.

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Lorie Hollabaugh

Hollabaugh, a staff writer at MusicRow magazine, has over 20 years of music business experience and has written for publications including American Profile, CMA Close Up, Nashville Arts And Entertainment, The Boot and Country Weekly. She has a Broadcast Journalism and Speech Communication degree from Texas Christian University, (go Horned Frogs), and welcomes your feedback or story ideas at lhollabaugh@musicrow.com.

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