A former Winston cop remembers the night Dolly Parton melted his jaded heart

By his own admission, Bailey Howard Jr. had become jaded by the time he took a job as director of security at the Lawrence Joel Memorial Coliseum.

Twenty-seven years as a city cop can do that.

In early November 2004, when Howard took a call from Dolly Parton's security team, he expected the worst.

Parton had a concert scheduled for Nov. 7, and her security chief wanted to make sure that Howard assigned two extra off-duty officers to shadow her at all times while she was in town.

"My first thought was, 'She must be an unbelievable diva. Two officers everywhere she went?'" Howard said.

Turns out, he couldn't have been more wrong.

The superstar, he would learn a few days later, "was just the nicest person you could meet. Not a diva at all."

And when she rolled into town that Sunday on her tour bus, he learned why she required extra security.

"She was so friendly, if anybody said, 'Hi,' she'd stop and talk for 45 minutes," Howard said. "Her security guy told me they had to get extra officers at every stop to keep her moving. They'd never get a show started on time if they didn't."

Dolly Parton left such an impression that Howard never forgot it.

And it knocked just a little bit of cynicism off.

"A lot of those people (celebrities) were just a horse's (backside) and divas," he said. "Not all of them. But a lot of them were."

As for the concert, Parton's performance matched her personality.

"When she sang 'Coat of Many Colors,' I just stood there and cried like a baby," Howard said.

"Best show I ever saw. Well, her and Toby Keith and Cher."