January 16th in Elvis History

It's January sixteenth, and on this day in 1971… Elvis Presley was honored as one of the Ten Outstanding Young Men of the Year by the United States Junior Chamber of Commerce. The award ceremony, held in Memphis, was a grand affair attended by dignitaries including ambassador-appointee George Bush. Elvis, accompanied by Priscilla, began the day at a JCC prayer breakfast, later addressing the press with a rare public statement: “I don’t go along with music advocating drugs and desecration of the flag. I think an entertainer is for entertaining and to make people happy.” In the evening, he hosted a private reception at Graceland for fellow honorees and Jaycee officials, offering informal tours of the mansion. This was followed by a formal dinner for one hundred guests at the Four Flames Restaurant, complete with personalized place cards embossed with his signature TCB logo. At the main awards ceremony that night at Ellis Auditorium, Elvis proudly accepted the Jaycees trophy—an award he considered one of his most meaningful, and one he would carry with him on his travels from that day forward.