A version of the following article appeared in the Monday, August 31, 2026 edition of The Charlotte Ledger, an e-newsletter with local business-y news and insights for Charlotte, N.C.
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That time in 1978 when two dozen Dolly Parton look-alikes converged on Trade and Tryon streets
Contestants in the May 1978 Dolly Parton look-alike contest at Trade and Tryon Streets. The winner received $250 and two tickets to a Saturday night Dolly Parton concert at the old Charlotte Coliseum on Independence Boulevard. (Photos courtesy of H.A. Thompson, who emceed the event and is seen interviewing the contestant on the left.)
by Tony Mecia
Dolly Parton’s death last week at the age of 80 has brought back floods of memories. And in Charlotte, one of those memories was the Dolly Parton look-alike contest that drew 1,500 onlookers to Trade and Tryon streets in 1978.
The contest was sponsored by WBT radio.
Last week, longtime WBT DJ and mid-day host H.A. Thompson talked with Bo Thompson and Beth Troutman on the station’s “Good Morning BT” morning news/talk show about that contest, which he emceed, held on May 11, 1978.
At the time, Parton’s career was taking off, and her music was starting to gain crossover appeal. “Here You Come Again,” which had topped the country charts, had just reached No. 3 on the Billboard Hot 100 and had been recently nominated for a Grammy.
Parton was scheduled to perform on May 13, 1978, at what is now known as Bojangles Coliseum on Independence Boulevard.
H.A. Thompson recalled the contest:
Management said, “Why don’t we do a Dolly Parton look-alike contest?” …
We had 21 women participate … and it was held at NCNB Plaza. They don’t call it that anymore, but it was right there at Trade and Tryon. It was at high noon, and about 1,500 people showed up. It was 21 women dressed like Dolly Parton with the wigs and everything else.
According to a brief Charlotte Observer article at the time, the winner received $250 and two tickets to the show.
The winner was 34-year-old Diane Hollar of Charlotte, who said she “didn’t expect to win,” even though people regularly approached her in restaurants and asked, “Oh, do you know who you look like?” Hollar said at the time, according to the Observer.
Look-alike contests were apparently in vogue in the late 1970s. In 1977, Hollar had entered a Dolly look-alike contest sponsored by Country Music magazine but instead won the award for looking the most like singer Tammy Wynette.
Hollar’s niece posted on Instagram last week: “My Aunt Diane won a Dolly Parton look-alike contest years ago. And I will never forget Dolly telling her, ‘You are prettier than me.’ We have lost a true icon.”
Dolly Parton with Charlotte look-alike contest winner Diane Hollar. (Leigh Ann Bolick Oaks on Instagram)
As for the Charlotte concert, the Observer’s review said that Parton’s “songs were all from the heart, and the coliseum’s poor acoustics only dampened her clear, childlike voice.”
She wore a “conservative white pantsuit with rhinestone belt and jeweled, knee-length over-scarf” and was “oozing charm and backwoods tales. During her introduction to ‘Apple Jack,’ she said, ‘I don’t chew (tobacco) nearly as much as I did.”
H.A. Thompson recalled on WBT last week: “The beauty of what she was is she was a recording star. She was a radio star. She was a TV star. She was a movie star. Not too many people do it like that. And she was just a gem of gems.”