Entertainment

Elvis birthplace opens Elvis Week

For the 13th year in a row, Les Horne of Oxford, England, began Elvis Week in Tupelo at the birthplace of Elvis Presley.

“Every year we come, it has gotten a little better,” Horne said.

Hundreds of fans from around the world were in Tupelo on Saturday for the 36th Fan Appreciation Day at the Elvis Presley Birthplace Park, The Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal reported.

This year, for the first time, entertainment and food were in an amphitheater and theater opened on the grounds last August. An evening concert by an Elvis impersonator was moved to the Civic Auditorium because rain threatened. […]

Entertainment

Funeral services held for Bobby ‘Blue’ Bland in Memphis

Funeral services for soul-blues singer Bobby ‘Blue’ Bland were held Thursday, June 27, at First Baptist Church at 2835 Broad Ave., in Memphis.

Bland, a distinguished singer who blended Southern blues and soul in songs such as “Turn on Your Love Light” and “Further On Up the Road,” died Sunday. He was 83.

Rodd Bland said his father died due to complications from an ongoing illness at his Memphis home. He was surrounded by relatives. […]

Business

Don Pelts, founder of Corky's, dies in Memphis

Don Pelts, who founded the Memphis-based barbecue restaurant Corky’s Ribs and Bar-B-Q and helped increase the popularity of the savory food style with a shipping and supermarket sales business, has died, a relative said Thursday.

Pelts’ son, Barry Pelts, said his father died Wednesday night, May 15, of a heart attack at age 72.

Pelts opened the first Corky’s in Memphis in 1984, serving ribs and hand-pulled pork cooked over hickory wood and charcoal. According to the company’s website, Corky’s catering business started within a year of the first restaurant’s opening. […]

Business

Hershey plant strikes deal with Miss. CC

Hershey Co.’s Memphis plant has struck up a deal with Northwest Mississippi Community College to provide workers through the college’s career-technical education division.

Company officials tell The Commercial Appeal the chocolate maker was seeking a partner to train workers for the company’s recent shift toward mechatronics, a field of engineering that integrates mechanics, electronics, control theory and computer science.
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News

Earthquake felt in Mississippi Monday – 3.9 on Richter Scale

An earthquake that occurred eight miles underground Monday was strong enough to rumble the Memphis area and big enough to be felt in north Mississippi.

The U.S. Geological Survey, the government agency that keeps data on quakes, says the epicenter was about six miles southwest of Parkin, Arkansas, which is about 40 miles west of Memphis. The quake was 23 kilometers below the surface and measured 3.9 on the Richter scale. […]

Entertainment

Thousands mark Elvis’s death, get surprise visit

MEMPHIS, Tenn. (AP) – Thousands of devotees converged on Graceland to mark the 35th anniversary of Elvis Presley’s death and got a surprise welcome from the King’s former wife and daughter, the first time Priscilla and Lisa Marie Presley have appeared together at the annual gathering.
The two women appeared on an elevated stage in front of the crowd Wednesday night, the eve of the Aug. 16 date when the rock and roll icon died at home in 1977 from a heart attack after battling prescription drug abuse.
Elvis was born in Tupelo, Miss. […]