Dolly Parton’s $500 Promise Helped a Sevier County Student Become a Teacher

Long before Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library became an international literacy program, a promise made to Sevier County students was already changing lives at home.

Brenda Price was an eighth grader at Seymour Middle School when Parton introduced the Buddy Program. Students paired with a classmate and encouraged each other to remain in school. If both graduated, each would receive $500 from Parton.

Price kept her side of the bargain. When she graduated in 1992, the check helped pay for her first semester at Walters State Community College. She became the first person in her family to attend college, driving to Morristown because Walters State did not yet have a Sevierville campus.

The payment was a beginning rather than an ending. Price transferred to the University of Tennessee, earned a psychology degree, later completed graduate work and entered education. She spent 22 years teaching at Seymour Intermediate School.

Her story gives the Buddy Program a human scale. Parton created the initiative in 1991 as Sevier County confronted a high dropout rate. By connecting each student’s success to a classmate and attaching a meaningful graduation reward, the program turned staying in school into both a shared commitment and a visible hometown promise.

Parton’s relationship with local schools stretched well beyond that program. A 1964 graduate of Sevier County High School and former member of the Smoky Bear Band, she performed benefit concerts for instruments, helped purchase band uniforms and supported scholarships for local seniors.

The education work later expanded through the Dollywood Foundation and the Imagination Library, which began in Sevier County in 1995 before reaching children around the world.

For Price, however, Parton’s legacy is inseparable from a specific check and the education it unlocked. The student encouraged to finish school eventually spent more than two decades teaching other Sevier County children—a direct example of how one hometown investment continued moving through the community.