Nashville International Airport looks set to be renamed after Dolly Parton, days after the country singer's death at 80. Tennessee Governor Bill Lee confirmed that his office and the airport intend to pursue the change, following a petition drive that grew very quickly once the news broke.
The campaign itself is older than the moment. A Change.org petition calling for a Dolly Parton International Airport was launched in January 2025 and had gathered roughly 50,000 signatures by the time she died. Within days it passed 117,000, and it later climbed beyond 160,000.
Lee framed the decision in state terms rather than musical ones. He said her life was woven into the fabric of Tennessee, and that she had carried the Volunteer Spirit from a rural mountain home in East Tennessee onto global stages.
Support came from more than one direction. Sheryl Crow said publicly that she backed the idea, and Tennessee State Rep. Todd Warner, who had previously sponsored a bill to rename the airport after President Donald Trump, said he would introduce legislation for the Parton name instead. The airport had already begun lighting its parking garages pink.
There are procedural hurdles left before any change becomes official, including existing airport naming rules and the approvals they require. That is the gap between a governor saying his office will pursue something and a sign coming down.
The tributes have been arriving from every part of her working life, from the Americana Music Association's lifetime achievement award earlier in her career to the reporting of her death at 80. Nashville's own country infrastructure keeps building around her name, in a city where Robert's Western World is opening an outpost inside the new stadium.
The facts
- Governor Bill Lee said his office and the airport will pursue the renaming
- The Change.org petition launched in January 2025
- It held about 50,000 signatures before Parton's death
- It passed 117,000 within days and later climbed beyond 160,000
- Sheryl Crow and State Rep. Todd Warner both backed the campaign
How this checks out
Single source
Reported by a single outlet
Only one outlet has reported it so far, so it stays a single source.
Cited sources 1
Every outlet that reported this, linked to what it published. Equal credits, in alphabetical order.