PORT ANGELES — A benefit featuring four Elvis Presley tribute artists raised $6,000 for Volunteer Hospice of Clallam County and the Olympic Peninsula Humane Society.
The benefit drew a standing room-only crowd, said Mimi Wiggins, wife of former Port Angeles Mayor Glenn Wiggins, who organized the “Evening with Elvis.”
Four Presley tribute artists — including the Wiggins’ son, Bret, a 50-year-old Seattle architect who performs at festivals and contests — performed at the Vern Burton Community Center in Port Angeles on Jan. 7.
“We had no idea that this would mushroom into the event that it was,” Glenn Wiggins said, estimating that at least 650 people watched the show.
Mimi Wiggins on Friday delivered checks of $3,000 each to the two charities.
Other Presley tribute artists who performed are Dino Macris, a 55-year-old Boeing Co. engineer who also has been paying tribute to Presley for 20 years; and Aaron Wong and Eli “Tigerman” Williams, both from Vancouver, B.C., and both in their 20s.
The show spanned Presley’s life, with Wong and Williams churning out music from the King’s albums and movies of the 1950s and ’60s, and Macris and Wiggins performing tunes of the ’70s.
This first-time-ever Elvis tribute coincided with others across the nation, since the following day would have been Presley’s 77th birthday.
Presley died at the age of 42 on Aug. 16, 1977, in Memphis, Tenn.
