Video

After witnessing the power of music to calm unruly students, Albuquerque resident Joseph Chavez saw his second career: Elvis impersonator. Watch »

RELATED STORIES

• Albuquerque's other Elvis kisser weighs in
• Elvis: Still one of a kind
• Mississippi and Tennessee rake in the cash during Elvis week

More Local

• ABQTrib.com to remain available
• Former Marine to serve two years in jail for killing Albuquerque robber
• Wilson-Pearce battle for U.S. Senate exemplifies party's disparity

MOST RECENT TRIB STORIES

• ABQTrib.com to remain available
  08:48 a.m., February 25, 2008
• Congressman is indicted
  08:37 a.m., February 23, 2008
• Series of attacks target Green Zone
  08:36 a.m., February 23, 2008
• Iran is defying U.N., agency says
  08:35 a.m., February 23, 2008
• Waterboarding approval probed
  08:34 a.m., February 23, 2008

TRIB IN THE BLOGOSPHERE*

• Ty Murray Invitational thrills fans in Albuquerque
• Is Rome Burning?
• Ominous Skies
• The Road to Invalidation
• Albuquerque company participates in “Extreme Makeover: Home Edition”

*Note: The Tribune does not create and is not responsible for the blogosphere's headlines and stories. These links to blogs talking about ABQTrib.com are automatically generated. Use them at your own risk.

STORY TOOLS

• E-mail story
• Comments
• iPod friendly
• Printer friendly

SHARE THIS STORY [?]

Nancy Kozikowski can't remember where she was or what she was doing when Elvis Presley died 30 years ago on Aug. 16.

Presley's death, in Memphis at age 42, did not affect her as much as his early life had.

She didn't know the Presley who died in his Graceland mansion.

The Presley she knew was a young man, a rising star.

The Presley she remembers, will always remember, kissed her outside the Albuquerque Armory late in the evening of April 12, 1956.

"All Shook Up"

"Singer's Kiss Leaves Girl, 13, Real Shook," read the front-page headline of April 13, 1956, in The Albuquerque Tribune.

The girl in the headline was not Kozikowski but her childhood pal Carla Singer. Singer told The Trib how Presley kissed her and her friend Nancy as he was leaving the Armory after a performance.

This week, Kozikowski, now 64 and an artist known internationally for her weavings, recalled the story.

"They were sweet kisses, on the cheek, nothing over the top," she said. "Elvis was giving out autographs and the kisses were totally appropriate for the situation.

"But I was thrilled. Anybody would have been thrilled."

Back then, Nancy Kozikowski was Nancy Hebenstreit. She and Carla were both 13 and students at St. Vincent Academy, a Catholic school for girls.

Carla's mother took them to the Presley show at the old Armory at Fifth Street and Silver Avenue Southwest.

Presley was described in the 1956 Trib story as a "rock Õn' roll singer who was recently signed to a long-term movie contract on the basis of his sudden success with the teenagers."

He shared the Armory bill with Faron Young and "extra added attraction" Wanda Jackson. The Trib reported that the show attracted one of the largest crowds ever to the Armory, which seated 2,500.

That's not hard to believe considering ticket prices — $1.50 for the main floor, $1.25 for balcony seats and 50 cents for children.

Kozikowski, Carla and Carla's mom watched from the balcony. Then the girls slipped into the alley behind the Armory and were among those waiting for Presley when he left the building after his second show, at about 11:30 p.m.

Kozikowski said her parents, Bruce and Ann Hebenstreit, were mortified when her name appeared in The Tribune the next day.

What her parents could not know at the time is that the brief encounter at the Armory would not be their daughter's last meeting with the King of Rock n' Roll.

"Viva Las Vegas"

Just a few weeks after Kozikowski saw Elvis at the Armory, she accompanied her parents to a golf tournament in Las Vegas, Nev.

She said she prayed that Presley would be there. In fact, he was performing at the Frontier Hotel, across the street from where the Hebenstreits were staying.

While checking into her hotel, Kozikowski ran into a friend from Albuquerque who had a Brownie camera, so they went looking for Presley.

They found him leaving the Frontier Hotel with members of his entourage, and the accommodating star posed for pictures with them. He was 21.

Kozikowski said Presley was happy to see her and her friend because Las Vegas was short on teenagers, which were his fan base.

"Vegas was where people went to get away from their kids," she said.

Kozikowski visited with Presley several more times during her week in Las Vegas.

"He was always nice and flirty," she said. "It was amazing there was almost no one else around."

She saw several of Presley's Vegas shows, including a matinee in which she, by now a familiar face to the singer, was given a table next to the stage.

"He would sing directly to me," she recalled. "He was very appreciative of having a bona fide fan."

One morning, Kozikowski said, she went to a penny arcade next to the Frontier Hotel and found Presley by himself, just killing time.

"We took pictures in the 25-cent booth, together and alone," she said. "We also made a talking record together. I was self-conscious and silly during the recording. I said, `Hi.' He said, `Well, aren't you going to say my name.' So I said, `Hi, Elvis. What are you doing here?'

"I'm too embarrassed to remember the rest."

And she can't listen to it now. Kozikowski said a jealous boyfriend destroyed the record and the photo booth pictures.

But the pictures from her friend's Brownie camera survive, as do Kozikowski's impressions of Presley.

"He was very nice, not a lech," she said. "Besides, I was only 13 and thought Elvis was too old for me."

His future wife, Priscilla Presley, would have been 11 at the time.

"Heartbreak Hotel"

Kozikowski's Elvis encounters earned her something of a reputation in Albuquerque.

"I remember a girl, someone I didn't even know, crossing the street to ask me if these things had really happened," she said. "It was amusing to me that it could have that much effect."

Even without the King in her résumé, Kozikowski stood out from the crowd.

She pinned the St. Vincent Academy emblem upside-down on her school uniform. She tied the shoestrings of her Oxfords in reverse, knotting the bow at the bottom. The burgeoning artist in Kozikowski prompted her to draw pictures — often of Elvis or actor James Dean — during class.

"I just did things differently — not to be subversive but out of curiosity, to see if anyone would notice," she said. "But my curiosity, my questioning of everything gave the impression of being hard to manage."

During the school year after her Elvis kiss, Kozikowski was among four or five girls dismissed from St. Vincent Academy.

Her parents enrolled her at Washington Junior High, where, during a talent show, she became an Elvis impersonator.

"Not just an Elvis impersonator, not just the first female Elvis impersonator, but, I think, the very first Elvis impersonator with an audience," she said this week. "If anyone did it earlier, they would have to prove it to me."

For the talent show, she thickened her eyebrows and lips, added sideburns, combed her hair like Elvis and broadened her shoulders with one of her father's jackets. She "played" a cardboard guitar and lip-synched the words to "Heartbreak Hotel."

"Because I had seen him perform so closely, I felt I could become Elvis," she said. "When I performed, it was like I was him. The girls screamed. It sort of surprised me."

Between performances, Kozikowski said the school principal told her she couldn't swivel her hips.

"That's what they told Elvis, too," she said. "But of course I did it for the next performance anyway. That was part of the act."

"Forget Me Never"

Before she met Presley, before she heard his music, Kozikowski was sold on rhythm and blues, the singing of Ruth Brown, Little Richard and Fats Domino.

"Like all young people, I thought that was real roots music and wondered why white people couldn't do it," she said. "Then I heard Elvis Presley. He made it legal for white people to sing rhythm and blues. I was not a screaming Elvis fan, but I recognized the huge impact of his music."

Now, she doesn't remember where she was or what she was doing when she heard that Elvis had died.

But she still has his music and memories of those sweet kisses.