
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SUNDAY, March 1, 1992                   TAG: 9203030092
SECTION: HORIZON                    PAGE: E-1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: GEORGE KEGLEY
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Short

ELVIS LIVES

Elvis Presley was 25 and most of his short musical career was ahead of him when he waved to hundreds of fans and a few of us reporters from the rear platform of the Tennesseean during a brief Roanoke stop.

Snow was on the ground when I left obituaries and the police beat at the newspaper to join the Elvis watchers at the Norfolk and Western Railway passenger station on a Sunday afternoon in March 1960.

On his way home to Memphis after he was discharged from the Army at Fort Dix, N.J., Elvis was still wearing a classy armored division sergeant's uniform. He had few comments when we questioned him at the back of the train.

Wearing pancake makeup, without sideburns, he waved, grinned and mugged for about 250 squealing fans.

The crowd screamed when Elvis pretended to dive from the platform. He clowned and wiggled his hips to the delight of fans.

As railroad special agents tried to control the crowd, I heard a small girl say, "Tell Elvis my grandmother said she'd like to take him to raise."

The train was due in Memphis Monday morning, Parker announced. The first public appearance for Elvis in his post-military career was to be on the Frank Sinatra TV show in May and three movies were planned.

"I'll dream about him for a year," a teen-ager said.

Some of the crowd arrived at the passenger station an hour before the train. A middle-aged woman waded across the tracks in snow up to her knees to wave to Elvis and an old man with a cane watched the Presley admirers.

When the train pulled out of the station, a young woman sobbed, "Oh no, he can't be going."

by CNB