Elvis Jacob Stahr, Jr.

Elvis Jacob Stahr Jr.
Elvis Jacob Stahr by Leo Fox
6th United States Secretary of the Army
In office January 24, 1961 – June 30, 1962
President	John F Kennedy
Preceded by	Wilber M. Brucker
Succeeded by	Cyrus Roberts Vance
Personal details
Born	(1916-03-09)March 9, 1916 Hickman, Kentucky, U.S.
Died	November 11, 1998(1998-11-11) (aged 82) Greenwich, Connecticut, U.S.
Spouse(s)	Dorothy Berkfield (1946)
Alma mater	University of Kentucky Merton College, Oxford Yale University

Elvis Jacob Stahr Jr. (March 9, 1916 – November 11, 1998) was an American government official and college president and administrator. After graduating from the University of Kentucky in 1936 as a member of Sigma Chi and Pershing Rifles, he attended Merton College at Oxford University on a Rhodes Scholarship. He served as lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Army during World War II. He returned to the University of Kentucky and became a professor and then dean of the College of Law, before becoming president of West Virginia University. He served as the United States Secretary of the Army between 1961 and 1962 and served as president of Indiana University from 1962 to 1968. He was the president of the National Audubon Society from 1968 until 1981.

Stahr was born in 1916 in Hickman, Kentucky to Hon. Elvis Stahr, a Fulton County, Kentucky judge and his wife Mary McDaniel Stahr. At age 16, he entered the University of Kentucky, where he achieved the highest academic average in the history of the university. Graduating from the University of Kentucky in 1936 as a member of Sigma Chi and the National Society of Pershing Rifles, a Reserve Officer Training Corps fraternal organization, he attended Merton College, Oxford on a Rhodes Scholarship where he studied law. He was known at Oxford as "the Colonel" and resisted assuming British affectations. He practiced law in New York, then studied Chinese at Yale University. He served in combat units in China during World War II as a United States Army lieutenant colonel.