Participants at the Sevier County Senior Center on Monday, May 7 met a famous local resident in their age bracket when 72-year-old Dolly Parton made a surprise visit.
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Parton dropped by for the facility's renaming ceremony. Once called the Fort Sanders Sevier County Senior Center after a local hospital, the center has a new name in honor of Parton's parents, Robert and Avie Lee. It's now called the My People Senior Activity Center.
"Now of course, when I started Dollywood and the employees there, I thought of them as my family, and they became my people," Parton said on Monday, as quoted by Knox News. "And of course when we ... actually got involved in the fires up here in the heart of the Smokies, we call that My People. So I was just thinking, you know, I'm looking out at you, and I think you are, all of you, you're my people, and this is great, and I'm so proud and so honored that I'm a Smoky Mountain girl, and I'm so proud of my home, and I'm so proud of my family."
Read More: Country Classics Revisited: Dolly Parton's 'Jolene'
The epitome of an active senior citizen, Parton crashed aerobics class (the photos from this are a hoot) before taking a gander at the woodworking and quilting activities at the newly rechristened facility.
