Barbershop Museum at Chaffee celebrates Elvis haircut anniversary

Jim Kell didn’t like Elvis Presley. He was more into Tommy Dorsey and Sinatra. But his assignment was to interview this new singing sensation who recently wowed television audiences on the Ed Sullivan Show and was now at Fort Chaffee to begin his two-year stint with the U.S. Army.

But Kell changed his mind about Elvis after a 15-minute interview. A few minutes into the interview, the film broke. Kell, knowing Elvis was pressed for time, needed to start the interview again.

“It was no problem. He agreed to start over. He was very nice about the whole thing,” Kell recalled.

Kell became a fan during the interview.

And it’s the continuing charm of Elvis that resulted in the creation of a Barbershop Museum in the same building at Fort Chaffee in which Elvis had his U.S. Army induction haircut.

A large crowd gathered Wednesday afternoon (Mar. 25) to commemorate the anniversary. Jimmy Don Peterson, the son of James Peterson, the barber who cut Presley’s hair, was on hand to provide free “G.I. haircuts.” Jimmy Don, a licensed barber, was accompanied by his mother, Edith Peterson.

“I just can’t believe how popular this has been. We have a true bonafide tourist destination here at Fort Chaffee,” said Ivy Owen, executive director of the Fort Chaffee Redevelopment Authority.

Owen praised the efforts of Jan Honeycutt, a teacher at Beard Elementary in Fort Smith; Linda Seubold, a long-time journalist in Fort Smith and Carolyn Joyce and Claude Legris, both with the Fort Smith Convention & Visitors Bureau, for helping make the barbershop a reality. He also thanked the FCRA staff, including FCRA Finance Director Janet Menshek, who Owen said was the “director of all things Elvis” for the staff.

Over the years, Beard Elementary students under Honeycutt’s tutelage studied the economic impact a museum about Presley’s stay at Fort Chaffee might have. They also raised money for the museum, eventually donating $1,119.58 to the effort. It was their efforts that generated the idea of a museum. Seubold wrote an article about their efforts in the mid-1990s and it began to gain momentum from that point.

“This is just terrific,” Seubold said of the event. “And you have to think about those (Beard Elementary) kids who did all this research and who were concerned about what might happen out here. Don’t you think that’s great? I sure do.”

Seubold cited Owen as being instrumental in getting the museum open in time for the anniversary.

“When he started, he really saw what we were trying to do out here. He just said, ‘Let’s make this happen,’ and then he did it,” Seubold said.

The museum will soon be open on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, and is staffed by volunteers from the Fort Smith CVB. The museum opened Aug. 22, 2008.

One of those volunteers is Jack Cleavenger, who was a photographer at the Southwest Times Record when Presley had the haircut. It was Cleavenger who suggested Presley blow his freshly shorn hair out of his hand. Presley obliged, and it became one of the most famous pictures of Presley.

“(Presley) was the nicest person. Everything with him was ‘Yes sir’ and ‘No sir,’” Cleavenger said prior to Wednesday’s ceremony.

Another nice young man is Ashton Provo of Spiro, who volunteered for the first haircut in the same chair (according to Owen and other museum supporters) Presley sat for his haircut. Provo’s mother, Barbara Jenkins, said he is a big Elvis fan.

“His room is a massive Elvis museum. He begged and begged and we took him to Graceland last summer,” Jenkins said.