Elvis sighting at festival

By Jim Rogers

Elvis Presley lives.

Thirty- eight thousand metformin weight loss children people worldwide impersonate the superstar, and one of the Northwest’s best imitators appeared on stage at the ninth annual Wings & Wheels event last weekend at Eastmont Community Park in East Wenatchee.

“This man is amazingly good,” said East Wenatchee Mayor Steve Lacy. “I’m glad we got him. He can really sing.”

Danny Vernon impersonated Presley’s looks and sound so well last year that he received second place at a competition held at Graceland, Presley’s famed estate, last year.

The Puyallup resident is one of only 10 Elvises endorsed by Graceland, among the tens of thousands who seek the honor.

“We were lucky to get him,” said Marlin Lannoye of East Wenatchee and longtime member of the Wenatchee Street Rod Association.
The Wings & Wheels Festival is an annual event sponsored by the city of East Wenatchee events group in cooperation with Eastmont Parks and Recreation. The event at Pangborn Memorial Airport commemorates the historic first trans-Pacific flight that began at Misawa, Japan, and ended at East Wenatchee in 1931. Clyde Pangborn and Hugh Herndon were the pilots who flew Miss Veedol across the Pacific Ocean. Misawa is East Wenatchee’s sister city.

Lacy made a short political speech, saying his opponent for mayor in this year’s election would like to take away the funding for Wings & Wheels and other events.

“There is a great working relationship between the parks and the events board,” said Sally Brawley, Eastmont Parks and Recreation District director. “We cannot do this kind of event with just volunteers.”

East Wenatchee city events board director Dawn Collings said 206 participants entered cars. The estimated crowd was 2,500 people.

“We heard a lot of good things about the events at the airport. The carnival was well attended and people thought it was a good atmosphere,” she said. “The crowd at the park was not the largest ever, but it was not the smallest either.”