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ISSUE 43, 1 September 2026
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Welcome back to The Bend!
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The Bend follows a simple rhythm each week. The Eddy Line opens with a one-line thought or
observation, something short enough to remember but worth thinking
about. What the Current Pulled Toward dives a
little deeper into where the previous week’s energy went, whether that’s
a project, a partnership, or a personal lesson learned. Signal Fire highlights a person, place, or initiative
that deserves some attention. From the
Field, shares a small anecdote about the broader outdoor
recreation economy from Oxbow’s non-profit arm, the VA
MTNS Outdoor Collective. And One Thought Worth
Sitting With closes things out with a brief reflection or quote
that will hopefully help guide you through whatever you may be dealing
with.
It’s part journal, part field note, and hopefully
something that makes you pause for a moment before diving back into the
current.
Author’s note: the views, opinions, and observations
expressed in The Bend
are my own and do not represent any employer, public agency,
organization, or individual. Where applicable, they reflect only my work
through Oxbow Strategies and the VA MTNS Outdoor Collective.
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“Find out who you are and do it on
purpose.“
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What the Current Pulled Toward
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This week the current pulled toward
being
grounded.
Dolly Parton died this week at 80 and a lot of
what has been written about her since has understandably focused on the
music, as there’s certainly plenty there to
celebrate. But she was so much more than the songs that we’ve all sung
along to.
What I liked most about her
was her sense of place. For someone who became globally famous, Dolly
never seemed particularly interested in distancing herself from where
she came from. Quite the opposite, actually. She kept returning to East
Tennessee, to the Smokies, to the stories and people that shaped her.
She built businesses there and she invested there. She gave there, both
her money and her time. She made the region part of her identity instead
of something she needed to outgrow.
I
can’t tell you enough how envious I am of that. While I never ran away
from the values that shaped me, there was a time in my life when I
didn’t associate much with anything or anyone to do with my hometown.
It’s one of the few real regrets I have.
I think there is a leadership lesson in that. Success has a way of creating distance if we let it. As we
all progress in our chosen professions, the
title may change and the office might get bigger. The circle around us
certainly changes and when that happens, people tend to start filtering
what reaches us. Eventually, it becomes awful easy to forget the
perspective we had before any of that happened.
Being grounded is partly about resisting that.
It means remembering the people who helped when you
had very little influence to offer in return. It means staying connected
to the communities affected by the decisions you make. It means
understanding that advancement doesn’t somehow make the work beneath
you.
Dolly could’ve spent the second
half of her career simply being Dolly Parton. Instead, she kept building things for other people.
Her Imagination Library grew from a literacy
program started in her home county into an international effort that has
put hundreds of millions of books into the hands of children. Dollywood
became a major employer in the same part of Tennessee where she grew up.
When wildfires devastated the Smokies, she helped families who had lost
their homes.
None of that required her
to pretend she hadn’t become extraordinarily successful. She simply never seemed embarrassed by where the story
started. There’s something worth holding onto
in that. Leadership will inevitably change the
rooms we are invited into but the trick will be
making sure those rooms never make us forget where we came
from.
- Mike.
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Dolly started the Imagination
Library in 1995 in Sevier County, Tennessee. The idea was remarkably
simple: registered children would receive a free, age-appropriate book
in the mail every month from birth until age five.
That hometown program eventually grew far beyond East
Tennessee. One of the departments under my purview in Franklin County is the Public Library System, which
participates in the program with support from the Franklin County
Library Foundation. Any enrolled child living in Franklin County can
receive a book each month at no cost to the family. The local program
has registered around
2,000 children.
I really love the simplicity of that.
A program created in one rural Appalachian
community now arrives in mailboxes in another, one book at a time.
Dolly
built plenty of things people will remember and some of the most consequential might be sitting on a child’s
bookshelf.
To learn more about Imagination Library, click
here.
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The Great Smoky Mountains were drawing visitors
long before Dollywood existed. The national park, mountain scenery,
trails, streams and Appalachian culture had already established the
region as a destination.
What’s most
notable here is that Dolly didn’t try to replace that identity, rather
she added to it and made a stronger connection
between place and economy.
Dollywood opened in 1986 and eventually became
Tennessee’s top tourist attraction and Sevier County’s largest employer,
with an estimated $1.8
billion in annual economic impact.
That in and of itself is an interesting lesson for
communities trying to grow an outdoor economy.
A trail doesn’t have to carry the entire tourism strategy.
Neither does a river, a climbing area, or a
park.
Outdoor assets can bring someone
to a place. Restaurants, music, arts, lodging, events, local businesses,
and cultural experiences give them reasons to stay longer and come back.
That’s called making a region “sticky.”
The strongest of those destinations tend to understand both
sides of that equation. The Smokies have the
mountains, along with a culture and economy
that grew around them without losing sight of why people were drawn
there in the first place.
I find that
to be so incredibly relevant for communities throughout Appalachia.
The goal doesn’t have to be creating the next
Dollywood, but a good place to start is recognizing what’s already special about a place and building outward
from there.
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One Thought Worth Sitting With
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This week’s theme: Being Grounded.
“If you see someone without a smile, give them
yours.“
-Dolly Parton
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