Published: September 30, 2008 09:24 am      

Honest Abe

Abraham Lincoln look-a-like brings history to life for St. Camillus Academy students

By Sean Bailey / Staff Writer

As Jim Sayre recited the Gettysburg Address at St. Camillus Academy Monday afternoon, it was hard not to believe — if only for a brief moment — that Kentucky’s own Abraham Lincoln was giving one of America’s most famous speeches in a school cafeteria.

Sayre is a tall man with a beard that lines his chin, and when in character, he’s always dressed in a stovepipe hat.

Put simply, he fits the part.

So much so that St. Camillus student Savannah Durham asked during Sayre’s presentation if the beard was real. He invited her up to check its validity with a tug.

“This is my 26th year of doing this, and I had no intention of ever doing this ... I’ve never had a desire to be an actor, this just happened,” Sayre said before his presentation “I, too, am a Kentuckian” at St. Camillus.

Sayre, a Lawrenceburg native, first grew his iconic beard after spending a tour of duty in the U.S. Army from 1957-59. He jokes that the beard was grown as a “protest” after spending his Army years in Ethiopia, where he was required to shave every day.

“I really didn’t like that shaving business everyday, so when I got out in 1959, I would let it grow and then shave it off. You have to understand, in 1959 no one had beards, and I was a total outcast everywhere I went,” Sayre said.

In the late 1970s, Sayre let it all grow out. Again, without any intention of looking like old honest Abe, Sayre shaved all his facial hair except for what was on his chin. Friends saw a striking resemblance to President Lincoln, and urged him to enter a look-a-like contest during a celebration of Lincoln’s birthday in LaRue County, Lincoln’s birthplace.

“I came in third place with a rented costume. I took the rented costume back and my fame and fortune as Abraham Lincoln had blossomed, flourished and ended all in the same day,” Sayre said.

But, of course his days of Lincoln were not over. Sayre said he received all sorts of requests to appear as Lincoln at churches, schools and town parades. At the time, Sayre was working in the transportation industry, which allowed him to travel and appear at schools all across the country.

Sayre said history has always been a “mystery” to him, a subject he loved to delve into. Since donning the stovepipe hat and re-creation period clothes, Sayre told the students at St. Camillus he’s amassed quite a few books on Lincoln — close to 200 in his own library.

In character, Sayre told the students how Lincoln was a voracious reader as a child. Sayre, besides telling stories of Lincoln’s life — from his first seven years in Kentucky, to his time as a lawyer, then politician, and finally up to his death at Ford’s theatre — stressed the importance of reading in Lincoln’s life.

“I loved that reading. I read every book I could find. I read every book in our house, every one of them ... I read everything I could, if someone had discarded something I would read it ...” Sayre said in character.

Sayre also touched on other important and not so distant historical figures, like President John F. Kennedy, with whom he drew many parallels to Lincoln.

Sayre was brought to the students by the Kentucky Humanities Council Inc., The National Endowment for the Humanities, and donations from St. Camillus parents and grandparents. Later in the evening, Sayre presented his “I, too, am a Kentuckian” at the Union College Chapel in Barbourville.

Sayre, now 72, is retired from the transportation industry and spends his time traveling “coast to coast, border to border” to schools teaching students about the 16th president. Sayre has a friend who dons period gear and becomes Confederate President Jefferson Davis, another Kentucky native, and the two have had stage debates in the past for historical groups and students.

With Kentucky’s celebration of Lincoln’s birth this year, he says he has a busy schedule around the state educating groups on his favorite president.

“Mr. Lincoln was the great emancipator,” Sayre said. “I’m the great pretender.”