april moore skelton

On Aug. 16, 1977, things changed for Joni Mabe. She’d never been much of an Elvis fan, but that day, during a 24-hour radio tribute to the just-passed King, Elvis spoke to her.

“I became a fan the day he died,” says Mabe, better known to many as “Joni Mabe the Elvis Babe.” “Something about his voice - I became obsessed.”

Obsessed definitely is the correct word. Mabe later did her University of Georgia thesis work in drawing and painting and printmaking on Elvis, and things only got more intense from there.