Former BG radio voice recalls introducing Dolly Parton

For 16 years, Brooke Summers was a familiar voice on WUHU 107.1 FM. Just a few months after leaving Kentucky, an unexpected opportunity put her behind the microphone at the Academy of Country Music Awards, where she introduced Dolly Parton — an experience Summers says became even more meaningful because she had admired Parton since childhood.

An opportunity she thought was a prank

Summers said she had been in Lincoln, Nebraska only about four months and was beginning an afternoon shift on a country station when an email arrived from an executive producer offering her an opportunity with the ACM Awards.

She initially thought someone was playing a joke on her.

“I wrote back jokingly like, ha ha, you want me to be the host?” Summers recalled. She later submitted audition tapes and learned she had gotten the job. Then came another surprise: Parton would be hosting the show.

Summers said she “literally freaked out.”

“I absolutely loved Dolly. I have loved Dolly since I was a kid,” she said.

The voice that brought Dolly onstage

Summers worked from a booth inside the arena, listening to the director through her headphones while watching the production unfold around her.

She said getting to see Parton away from the polished television interviews made the experience even more memorable.

“It was just amazing to just witness her wit and her personality and her shine,” Summers said. She remembered watching Parton come up with quick responses and jokes off the cuff while Summers tried to stay focused on her own job.

But one moment still stands above the rest: saying Parton’s name and watching her walk onto the stage.

“She heard me say her name,” Summers said. “Like she has no idea who I am. I’m just the big voice or whatever. But just the fact that, like I got to say, it’s Dolly Parton and she walks out on the stage and I’m like, her cue.”

Summers said the opportunity became even harder to comprehend because she got to do the job two years in a row.

Seeing Dolly behind the scenes

The first year included two full days of rehearsals, giving Summers a chance to watch Parton when the cameras were not necessarily rolling for the show.

While other performers might arrive in sweats, baseball caps or without makeup, Summers said Parton was unmistakably Dolly every time.

“Not Dolly. She had the makeup, she had the wig, she had the heels,” Summers said. “And she looked phenomenal every single time. And every time we practiced, she looked different.”

Summers said the experience was something she never imagined would happen to someone who had built a career in local radio.

“That doesn’t just happen to regular radio people,” she said. “There’s all these voiceover people. That’s their job. So I never would have imagined I would have had that opportunity.”

A loss that felt personal

When Summers learned Parton had died, she said her reaction was immediate.

“I feel like I’ve lost a loved one. I think we all feel like that,” Summers said. “You know, we all felt a connection to Dolly, because if it was the music, if it was Imagination Library, if it was what she’s done with the hospitals, what she did during Covid, I think she’s touched everybody’s life.”

Summers said she could not remember meeting anyone who had “a single, solitary bad thing to say” about Parton.

“She loves everybody. She wants to help everybody, and she’s just fabulous in sparkles and glitter,” Summers said.

For Summers, introducing Parton on the ACM stage remains a memory she never expected to have — and one she says she will always carry with her.