April 5, 2006: Whatever happened to...

Whatever happened to Jeremy Roller ’95 and Brian Policano ’95?

It was a mutual love of Elvis that brought Jeremy Roller ’95 and Brian Policano ’95 together at Princeton in 1993, and later gave birth to PElvis — or Princeton for Elvis — “a group of Princeton students dedicated to spreading the magic of the King.”

In its heyday, PElvis had a “couple hundred members” who paid $5 each to join, Roller says, and the group received some University funding. “We showed old Elvis movies, had a couple of themed parties where a few people dressed like Elvis, ate fried peanut-butter-and-banana sandwiches, and drank a lot of beer.”

Policano, meanwhile, began producing daily online e-mails called “This Day in Elvis History” that featured quotes from the King. “They were brilliant — people loved them,” says Roller, now an attorney in Seattle. “People from all over wrote to Brian, asking to be on his e-mail list.”

Despite the tongue-in-cheek naming of their organization, Policano, a pediatrician in Bridgeport, W.Va., and Roller were serious about Elvis and visited Graceland “two or three times,” Roller says. Roller’s mother even sewed a white satin jumpsuit for him to wear during a half-time show at a Princeton football game.

PElvis is no longer active, according to Roller, but may have “the oldest working Internet page.” View the page at www.princeton.edu/~pelvis/.

By F.H.