Aw shucks: Dolly Parton corn mazes crop up in fields nationwide

Dolly Parton ’s megawatt smile and big wavy locks are gracing fields across the U.S. and Canada this fall. Twenty farms have carved out large corn mazes to honor the late country music icon, actor and philanthropist and raise money for her Imagination Library, which provides free books to children. The “Jolene” crooner's death due to cancer on Aug. 25 in Nashville at age 80 brought an outpouring of tributes. They ranged from a drive to rename the country music capital’s airport in Parton’s honor to a surge in online streams of “9 to 5,” “Islands in the Stream” and her many other hit songs. Now she is being immortalized in corn, with the mazes located in about a dozen states and two provinces, from Alabama to California and Ohio to Texas. Most also feature a Parton-themed trivia game, photo ops and other offerings. Mazes were planned months before her deathBrett Herbst, founder of The Maize Inc., the Utah-based consulting company that designed the mazes, called Parton a “true American t