18th December 1954, Saturday

[Graeme]

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© Shreveport Times

[Private Presley]

December 18, 1954


Elvis, Scotty and Bill arrived at Shreveport for their scheduled performance at the Louisiana Hayride where he also met up with his then girlfriend - Carolyn Bradshaw. Carolyn was one of many ladies Elvis dated in his lifetime.

An Arkansas native, Carolyn would grow up to perform on the Louisiana Hayride, enjoy one career in music, and another in business.
She recorded at a KWKH studio ‘The Marriage of Mexican Joe’ which reached the top ten in the country charts. During her stint at the Hayride, she met quite a few renown performers of the day including Hank Williams and George Jones.

She also remembers meeting Elvis. "Oh, yes," she says, her voice deepening when asked if she remembered him. "Betty Amos and Jenny Wright and Maxine Brown were telling me about him saying, "Just wait until you see the new kid on the block." She says, "I kept hearing that. I thought, `Who is this upstart?'" So I met him. I thought, "Wow!" So struck by his looks and charisma, she now can't remember what he first said to her. "I don't think I heard it. I was just looking at him. I probably didn't hear the first fifteen or so lines he said," she says. She describes him as "a gentleman. He didn't drink He didn't smoke except every now and then he'd smoke a cigar. He was very respectful of the women," she recalls. They dated for "a period of about three months," she says. He was "very restless...just having to be moving all the time." She, as well as others, called him "El." She sighs. "And then he was whisked away. He was getting very popular. That was just prior to the time he was on the Ed Sullivan Show." She, like many others, doesn't recall seeing him again but maintained fond memories of their brief and sweet romance with Elvis Presley.