Today is 9/25, and in Nashville, Tennessee, it’s “9-to-5 Day,” commemorating the life of country music legend and philanthropist Dolly Parton, who died one month ago at age 80.

Downtown, that’s meant an official proclamation from the mayor, bands covering her music everywhere you look, and drinks and other festivities honoring the late Tennessee icon. Many people have also written “kindness pledges” on sticky notes in the shape of butterflies – one of Parton’s signatures. They’re vowing to be kinder today than they were yesterday, and to love God and love people, among other things.

As Marianna Bacallao (@ba.marianna) reports, Dolly Parton has been Tennessee’s great unifier.

People across the political spectrum love Dolly. Nashville is a Democratic-led city in a red state, and Nashville and state lawmakers are often at odds. A few years ago, a state senator tried to rename Nashville’s airport after Donald Trump, and received a lot of local pushback. Now, the airport is in the process of being renamed for Dolly Parton with overwhelming bipartisan support.

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Photos: Marianna Bacallao
Producer: Daniel Potter
Editor: Megan Jones

Notable quoatables this week come from a conflict between two of Tennessee’s gubernatorial candidates. Independent Lauren Pinkston found herself ensnared in the discourse, after she posted a video about Andrew Jackson, saying he had experienced damaging trauma and coped poorly. Democratic candidate Jerri Green’s camp accused her of excusing Jackson’s atrocities and called on her to drop out.

Peter Frampton is the subject of “FRAMPTON,” a documentary that debuted at the Nashville Film Festival this week.

A Georgetown project documenting deaths in youth correctional facilities examines one site in Tennessee. The James M. Taft Youth Development Center opened as the Tennessee Reformatory for Negro Boys in 1911. It housed youths between the ages of 11 and 23, and it forced the boys to labor in nearby coal mines. Living conditions were cramped, dilapidated, and unsanitary. It changed names several times over the decades, but all along maintianed a cemetery for boys who died there. The total number of graves, including those that have gone unmarked, is unknown.

Samira Hardcastle resigned after her school’s administration ordered her to change a student’s grade, and not give them a zero for a late assignment.

Producer: Catherine Sweeney
Editor: Megan Jones

Shade can lower ambient air temperatures while also cooling surface temps by as much as 45 degrees.

Half of Nashville’s parks have less than 33% shade, a new report from the Nashville Tree Conservation Corps found.

“There`s not enough places for kids to play,” said Chris Leonard, the group’s board chair. “The playground equipment this time of year is boiling.”

Leonard is a parent. He commissioned the report while taking his kids to parks and watching families struggle amid longer, increasingly dangerous summers.

The report is based on the city’s latest study, which used 2021 data. The city has since had a major ice storm, and the Nashville Electric Service changed its tree-trimming policy. The city’s post-ice data will come out in 2028.

In the meantime, Leonard recommends asking local tree groups and city leaders for specific plantings and dedicated park funding for trees. “Every kid should have a shaded, pleasant place to play in the summer, especially in a wealthy city,” Leonard said.

Tap link in bio for the full story from environmental reporter Caroline Eggers

Photos: Caroline Eggers / WPLN, Daniel Potter / WPLN
Image: Caroline Eggers with data from the Nashville Tree Conservation Corps and Metro Nashville

To be or not to be? That is the question for the proposed Shakespearean playhouse in Centennial Park.

The Nashville Shakespeare Festival Executive Director Isabel Tipton-Krispin says they have a vision that is straight out of old time London.

“ The best way to describe it is an Elizabethan playhouse, much like Shakespeare’s Globe, retrofitted to fit inside the Centennial Park bandshell.”

The plan is for a two-story structure that would go up just before the annual five-week, late-summer production and taken down when it is over. The structure would have a tower on either side and, at the top of the towers, there will be little pennant shaped flags.

Actor AndrewJohnson says, that if the playhouse gets built, it could be that, too. “It’s more of a chance to not only play to people that think theater is for them, but people that think theater is not for them.”

The Nashville Shakespeare Festival’s production of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” runs through today in Centennial Park.

Follow for more from Justin Barney and tap link in bio for the full story.

Photos: Rendering by Hastings, Alex Craft, Justin Barney

Notable quotables for the week look at Nashville’s film industry, which could be on a major upswing. Paramount Skydance is hiring and building stages in the area. There’s discourse on whether Nashville can draw the talent it would need. Metro’s new enterinment office director says she’s not worried.

Earlier this summer, WPLN and ProPublica published an investigation into a company that operates juvenile justice centers acorss the state. Lawmakers are now wanting the statehouse to conduct its own investigation.

And a semi-driver allowed his intrusive thoughts to win. He crashed his rig into the entrance of the Aldi grocery store on Gallatin Pike, causing a stir for the chain’s devotees.

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