Barry and Linda Church are checking off their bucket lists in the mountains of Tennessee
By: Hadley Cottingham, Now Habersham
Barry and Linda Church aren’t little-known names in Habersham County. Barry was director of the Habersham County Emergency Management Agency for 34 years. Linda taught at Habersham Central High School, the Habersham Ninth Grade Academy, and Lanier Technical College. For much of the year, though, you won’t find them in Habersham. After retiring, they embarked on a new adventure– working at Dollywood.
“It was wintertime and my husband and I were up here all the time. We made the comment ‘You know, we might as well work up here. We’re here all the time,’” says Linda, who spends her days ushering at the Dollywood theaters. “So, come January, […] I thought ‘I’m going to go there and put my application in.’ I said ‘Barry, I put my application in at Dollywood,’ and he said, ‘Well you might as well go put mine in there too, I’m going with you.’”
The couple planned on working at Dollywood for a season to “check off their bucket lists” as Linda says, but their plans changed. “We did come for the one season, and we just liked it,” says Barry. “We’re finishing our fourth season this year.”
“We did come for the one season, and we just liked it. We’re finishing our fourth season this year.” – Barry Church
A fun adventure
Dollywood holds a special place in the hearts of the Church family. “We’ve always come to Dollywood; brought the grandkids and all that kind of stuff,” Barry says. “[…] As they grew up, we just kept coming for all the different shows.” He estimates they visited the park an average of eight to ten times a year and held season passes for 15 years.
“Our kids come up here, our grandchildren come up here, and it’s wonderful [for the family] to be able to come and enjoy the park. Now they’ve grown up in the park, we were bringing them before we started working here,” says Linda. Now that their children and grandchildren are older, Linda says that they’re big enough to go ride the thrill rides on their own. “I couldn’t wait until they got old enough or tall enough to do that so I wouldn’t have to ride!”
After all the time the two had spent in Dollywood, they were familiar with the park and its people. “We’d gotten to know a lot of the hosts that work here by coming so many times, and it seemed like they were having fun, so we came up and did the one season,” Barry says. “It was fun. We’ll stay until it quits being fun.”
“This is an adventure, that’s what we say. One of our sons gave us a little camper that says ‘My Adventure,’” Linda says. “I’ve told them here at Dollywood that when this becomes a job, I’m gonna go home because I can work at home.”
The Church’s work at Dollywood began in ride operation, where Linda worked at Country Fair and Barry worked on River Rampage.
“At first we didn’t tell people that we were working here, just our close friends knew we were up here. [People from Habersham] would run into us and [ask] ‘What are you doing here?’ It was kind of a shock for them,” Linda says. “And now a lot of people come and look for us, they know we’re here, so that’s a lot of fun. You see people that you know and it makes you feel good, especially when they take the time to come find you.”
Linda still runs into the people she knows from her time teaching in Habersham at Dollywood, which she loves. When they ask her what she’s doing up at the park, she’s happy to tell them, “I’m having fun, what about you?”
Christmas magic
Barry is currently a train conductor on the Dollywood Express, an authentic coal-fired steam engine that takes Dollywood guests on a short journey through the Smoky Mountains. His and Linda’s jobs might not have a lot in common with someone on the outside, but they witness something incredible that only people working in the park get to see each day: Dollywood’s Christmas magic.
“You see it [the park] during the day, [but] tonight, it will transform into a totally different place,” Barry says. “It just changes. You can go into one of the shows today, and if it gets dark when you come out, you won’t even know where you’re at.”
The park dramatically changes from a charming country town to a glowing Christmas village with over five million lights as the sun sets. Outside of the theater where Linda ushers, glittering stars and butterflies hang in the sky.
“It is my favorite time of the year. What I tell people that come to Dollywood is ‘If you’re not in the Christmas spirit, you will be when you leave,’” Linda says. “I love it, I love the fact that at night it [Dollywood] takes on a different personality with all the lights. And you’ll see that, if you’re here when it gets dark, the park takes on a whole different atmosphere.”
Barry’s train route is alight with Christmas trees and holiday cheer as Dolly Parton’s voice fills the train with Christmas songs. As the train passes through the park, Barry asks his passengers to shout “Merry Christmas,” to the guests they pass. “There’s no way you can beat Christmas at Dollywood,” he says.
“I would recommend to anybody that likes meeting people from all walks of life, they couldn’t come to a better place [than Dollywood],” Barry says. He’s met people from all over the world while working at Dollywood, from Habersham locals to European tourists. “There’s something [here] for everybody.”
“I’ve told them here at Dollywood that when this becomes a job, I’m gonna go home because I can work at home.” – Linda Church
Livin’ the (bucket list) dream
While the Churches do go back to their home in Habersham every now and again, driving across state lines every day isn’t completely realistic. “We bought a camper, so now we’re officially ‘work campers.’ It’s really fun,” Linda says. “I told Barry [that] we obviously love each other, or we would have killed each other living in that camper!”
Working at Dollywood has impacted Barry and Linda’s relationship, health and happiness for the better. “We’re living in a very small area, we both share our work, even though when we come into the park we don’t see each other until we get home at night. And then it’s like, ‘Did you have a good day?’ We share that. It’s fun, we look at this as fun,” Linda says. “I think our attitude has improved, every job has stress at some point, but this is just different.”
Barry is happier and healthier than ever, his doctor can vouch for that. He says that working at Dollywood is a workout every day, and he’s having fun while doing it. “When you’re having fun, your mind is relaxed. It’s a fun place to work,” he says. “Day in and day out, it’s a fantastic place.”
“This is what you do when you retire, you come and work at Dollywood. It keeps you young,” Linda says. “It doesn’t get any better than this.”
Photos/Video by Daniel Purcell, Now Habersham
