Jeffrey Fullner never set out to be an Elvis impersonator.
The longtime Lynden resident says his mother was a big Elvis Presley listener, but the first time he ever actually saw Elvis was during news coverage of his funeral in 1977. At the time, Fullner was more into the rock and roll of his own era, listening to bands like Pink Floyd and Boston.
Decades later, however, changes in Fullner’s life and career – and his continuing musical ambitions – would lead him down a path of white jumpsuits, bushy sideburns, and the iconic songbook of ‘The King.’
Now 62, Fullner has outlived Elvis by a full 20 years and has professionally performed as Elvis hundreds of times across the United States in the past ten years. Since 2021, he’s been joined by fellow Lynden resident and singer Jenn Ryan, who brings an additional layer of charm to shows with her powerful female vocals.
“We put on a classy show,” Fullner says. “Everything we do, I think Elvis would be proud of.”
Building a Life in Whatcom County
Fullner’s Whatcom County roots run deep, as his now-grown children are the fourth generation of his family to graduate from Lynden High School.
Despite this, however, Fullner spent many years building a life elsewhere. After high school, he attended Oklahoma State University and met his wife, Nancy. They remained in Oklahoma until moving to the Seattle area in the late 1980s.
Once there, Fullner spent 15 years in the tech industry. He worked as a computer software consultant for Microsoft, Nintendo and AT&T. The couple moved to Vashon Island and lived in a great home, but Fullner says he had little time to enjoy it. He eventually left the tech industry and began a deck-building company that proved profitable and left him happier.
But when the Great Recession hit, the Fullners fell on hard times, losing work and equity in their home. Nearly broke, Fullner took work as a commercial truck driver, and the family eventually relocated to Lynden.
All Shook Up as Elvis
Fullner drove a big rig full-time for the next four years, often traveling between Nashville and Memphis, Tennessee, on a section of Interstate 40 known as the Music Highway. He also began encountering Elvis-related sites along his journeys.
One night at the Casey Jones Home & Railroad Museum in Jackson, Tennessee, Fullner tried on a pair of cheap sunglasses at a nearby Elvis store. The storekeeper, insistent that Fullner looked like Elvis, requested a selfie.
Another time, while driving along the Northern Florida coast, Fullner sang karaoke in an area that had served as a filming location for the 1962 Elvis film “Follow that Dream.” The crowd was ecstatic.
“They just wanted me to sing Elvis,” he says. “So I did. And they really liked it.”
These chance encounters with the ghosts of Elvis’ past – and the random people and incidents along the way – eventually inspired Fullner to write “The God Box: My Life as Elvis,” a fictionalized account of his truck-driving adventures.
If I Can Dream
As Fullner’s finances improved, he transitioned into general contracting while continuing to raise three children with his wife.
But despite his family and career successes, a long-standing dream remained unfulfilled. From the time he was young, he’d wanted to be a professional singer. Over the years, Fullner wrote a number of original songs and learned to play guitar, violin, piano, and drums.
“I wanted to give my music career one more shot,” he says.
Fullner began performing live music in a trio and then a duo with a female singer. The latter arrangement had him doing acoustic covers of Top 40 1960s pop, but he also wrote music for his partner to perform. When she moved away, Fullner began adding Elvis songs to his solo act. It went well enough for him to take the next step: buying a white jumpsuit.
“I was so embarrassed,” he recalls, of donning the King’s outfit for the first time in front of his family. “It was like putting on a light bulb.”
Fullner also performed at an 80-year-old friend’s birthday party, where the reaction of women there convinced him that becoming The King on stage was the right move.
“80-year-old women are really quiet until you put an Elvis suit in front of them,” he says. “I’d never experienced anything like that before. And people looked at me different and saw me differently. And I liked that. I liked that, for the first time, people were noticing me.”
Embracing this flashy garb, he adds, feels the opposite of his time as a truck driver when nobody tended to notice him. Now, through Elvis, being noticed gives him a chance to impact people positively.
That includes shows with patriotic renditions of the Elvis medley “An American Trilogy” and ticket discounts for veterans and first responders.
“They’re the ones who keep America going,” he says.
Duos and Solos
Fullner has performed as Elvis, both locally and on tours across the U.S. and Canada.
He met his recent singing partner, local realtor Jenn Ryan, at a karaoke night at Lynden’s Rustlers’ Grill in 2021.
A Western Washington University graduate, Ryan had grown up singing in church. When Fullner met her, she was a mother of two children going through a divorce. He thought she sounded like a professional.
Although Ryan knew who Fullner was (there can only be so many men who look like Elvis in a small town), she was skeptical about taking her talents to a professional arrangement with Elvis.
However, their collaboration quickly proved successful, with Ryan performing songs by iconic female singers, including Celine Dion, Martina McBride, and Lady Gaga. They also duet on “If I Can Dream,” an Elvis song of fundamental importance to Fullner and his longtime musical hopes.
In the last three years, the duo has performed at least 30 shows together locally and regionally while juggling their careers. The duo’s shows have also served as a kind of therapy through hard times, including Ryan’s divorce and the cancer diagnosis of Fullner’s wife in 2022.
Looking ahead, Ryan is branching out with her own solo shows, while Fullner is spending more time in Arizona with his wife, who continues her cancer battle.
While the duo doesn’t know when they will next perform together, Fullner strongly suspects he won’t retire his jumpsuit soon.
“Every time I do a show,” he says, “I just want to do more shows.”
