What the Hill? – A Dolly Night No One Could Have Planned
By Connie Whitlock
Publishing Editor
I don’t know if you’ve ever planned an event only to have everything go completely sideways.
Another event planner could schedule something bigger and better right next door. Maybe the rain comes and washes the whole thing out. Everything that could go wrong does.
Whatever your event-planning story is, I’m willing to bet it can’t quite compare to what the Pleasant Hill Historic District found itself facing this week.
But instead of looking at it as everything going wrong, they decided to look at it a little differently.
Let me tell you the story.
Someone downtown had a fun idea: Why not create a night for shopping, getting the ladies together, and celebrating all things Dolly Parton?
Throw on a big blonde wig. Dig out something sparkly. Grab your besties and prance down First Street on a Thursday night. Shop the downtown stores, find a few things to bring home, laugh a lot, and meet a few new friends along the way.
It was a really fun idea.
And then came a twist nobody could have planned for.
Just two days before the event, Dolly Parton passed away.
Suddenly, an evening planned as a playful celebration of Dolly felt very different.
What do you do?
Cancel it? Change the theme? Pretend the timing isn’t a little surreal?
The downtown group regrouped, and somewhere in the middle of all that shock came another thought.
Maybe this night was supposed to happen after all.
There could be something strangely fitting about a group of people already planning to gather in downtown Pleasant Hill to celebrate Dolly Parton just days after the world lost her. What had started as a fun night of wigs, shopping and girlfriends could now be something more.
A tribute.
So that’s exactly what they decided to make it.
On Thursday, August 27, from 5 to 8 p.m., downtown Pleasant Hill will still be filled with Dolly. There can still be big hair, sparkles, shopping and plenty of fun. But now there will also be a chance to remember the woman who inspired it all in the first place.
PHHD didn’t plan a memorial.
They planned a party.
Circumstances gave that party a whole new meaning.