TAKING A LOOK BACK IN TIME: Local fair figure Carl Trainor recalls Dolly Parton performing live at Boonville-Oneida County Fair
BOONVILLE- The world is mourning the loss of a legendary music icon.
The family of Dolly Parton announced this week that she has passed away in the wake of a brief battle with cancer. She was 80-years-old.
Her music career spanned 6-decades and right up until near her passing, Dolly was still making records and touching countless lives here at home and around the globe.
Some of you may remember that Dolly Parton performed live here at the Boonville-Oneida County Fair when she was just launching her singing career.
According to local fair figure Carl Trainor, Dolly made her Boonville-Oneida County Fair debut in the summer of 1974, but Mother Nature did not cooperate.
In fact, Mr. Trainor recalls six out of seven days where it rained during the 1974 fair, and Sunday, the final day when Dolly played live, was unfortunately not an exception.
Mr. Trainor told Flack Broadcasting that some time later after Dolly's Boonville Fair performance, she was participating in an interview and one of the questions revolved around unique places she had performed live.
According to Mr. Trainor's recollection, Dolly's answer included singing under a funeral tent at the Boonville-Oneida County Fair.
During that time frame, Trainor says the Boonville Fair and several other New York fairs had not yet established covered stages, hence why his father, the late Mr. Wesley Trainor, former Funeral Director and Undertaker, was the one responsible for ensuring Dolly had some cover under the shelter of a funeral tent amidst threatening weather looming nearby.
Since Dolly had some very popular music and the fact that she was available for next year's fair in 1975, Mr. Trainor says the fair board booked her for a consecutive show.
But did Mother Nature cooperate this time? Well, at-least it did not rain, but Trainor recalls the great Northeastern heat-wave that just so happened to peak that summer during fair week.
According to weather records kept on Jackson Hill, the official temperature climbed above 90-degrees for three consecutive days in Boonville, NY during the fair.
If there is one thing other than stormy weather that will wipe out a fair crowd, Mr. Trainor says it is a heat wave.
So it was unfortunate that Mother Nature was fussy with Dolly while she visited the Boonville-Oneida County Fair, but that certainly did not stop her from rising to the star she became and will be known for forever.
Mr. Trainor and others will all say how wonderful of a person Dolly was to work with and that she will be dearly missed.
Though Dolly has passed on, she will forever be engraved into our local history - a young star on her way to a career that will arguably never be matched.
Be sure to listen to our latest on-air segment with Mr. Carl Trainor as he takes us back to the Boonville-Oneida County Fair in 1974 and 1975:
Images via the Boonville-Oneida County Fair and Dolly Parton's official social media accounts.
