Elvis Is Alive Museum is back on the auction block

St. Louis Post-Dispatch (MCT) - Looks like Elvis may soon be leaving another building.

The Elvis Is Alive Museum, formerly in Wright City, Mo., is once again for sale on eBay.

The owner of the museum, now located in Mississippi, says he cannot run the museum while away on military duty for at least the next five months. Owner Andy Key says he is training with the National Guard and will receive orders by Friday.

"It was a tremendously difficult decision, one that I thought about long and hard," said Key, 39, of Laurel, Miss. "I have pretty much spent seven days a week down there since I got the thing."

With help from family and friends, Key said he invested more than $40,000 to upgrade the museum. He has set a minimum starting bid of $15,000 on the listing, which ends Friday.

Key bought the collection for $8,300 on eBay in November from Bill Beeny, a Baptist minister who ran the roadside landmark off Interstate 70 in Wright City for more than 15 years. Key reopened it in June in Hattiesburg, Miss.

After the sale, Beeny transformed the building that housed the 400-square-foot museum into a mission to serve the poor and hungry.

Beeny had not heard of Key's decision to sell the museum until a reporter called him Monday.

"I'm kind of disappointed," said Beeny, 82. "If he's got to go to military duty, then that's understandable."

Beeny has no plans to buy back the museum because the mission is his full-time job now.

"We've got our work cut out for us," Beeny said. "We can't take Elvis back. Somebody else will have to go that route."

Key said the free-admission museum has been successful, averaging 10 to 15 visitors a day. As its name suggests, the museum's mission is to prove the theory that rock 'n' roll legend Elvis Presley did not die in August 1977.

The collection includes hundreds of photographs, newspaper and magazine clippings, copies of FBI files, a drivable replica of Elvis' Cadillac, a gravestone and a full-size bronze casket with the remains of a wax Elvis head attached to a fake, stuffed body.

Elvis has yet to make an appearance at the museum, but Key still believes he is out there, he said.

"He has not come by, or if he has, I sure didn't recognize him," Key said.

___

© 2008, St. Louis Post-Dispatch.