Dolly Parton gave $40,000 to Willamette University's athletics program after performing at the Oregon State Fair in 1990, a Salem connection the university highlighted in a Facebook tribute Wednesday, Aug. 26.
Parton died Tuesday, Aug. 25, in Nashville at age 80 after a brief battle with cancer, according to NPR.
The donation funded an expanded weight room and new equipment at the Lestle J. Sparks Center on the Willamette campus. Construction was completed in 1995.
Parton's tie to the university ran through Heine Fountain, a 1977 Willamette alumnus and former Bearcats football player who became her business partner.
The two met when Fountain produced an episode of Parton's variety TV show in Hawaii, the Statesman Journal reported.
On Aug. 23, 1990, Parton took the stage at the L.B. Day Amphitheatre before roughly 9,000 fans during the 125th Oregon State Fair.
The Statesman Journal described her entrance as "like a burst of sunshine" in "a cascade of fake blond curls and a tight, yellow pants suit." Her set included "Coat of Many Colors" and "9 to 5."
She joked about handing over her performance fee to Willamette's athletics department.
"I'd like to have kept the money," she told the crowd. "You know it costs a lot to make a person look this cheap."
The gross fee was $50,000. After expenses, Fountain presented a check for $40,000 to then-university president Jerry Hudson in September 1990. Parton was not present for the check presentation.
The gift was not Parton's first visit to Salem. On Sept. 9, 1989, she attended the annual alumni football game at McCulloch Stadium, where fans swarmed a roped-off area to snap photos and hand programs over the ropes for autographs. She spoke afterward to more than 200 people and announced the upcoming benefit concert.
Her earliest campus visit came April 13, 1985, while in Oregon for her Real Love tour with Kenny Rogers. She toured the Sparks Center weight room and watched a track meet at McCulloch Stadium.
To honor the donation, a plaque was displayed in the weight room for nearly two decades. After the facility was renovated in 2014, the plaque disappeared. Rob Passage, Willamette's Director of Intercollegiate Athletics, told the Willamette Collegian in 2023 that he is "unsure where it ended up after our facility renovation in 2014."
Willamette posted a tribute on its Facebook page on Wednesday, Aug. 26, sharing archival photographs from Parton's 1989 campus visit and calling her generosity "part of our campus history." The post drew 1,500 reactions and 117 shares. The photographs are viewable on the university's Facebook page.
