POJOAQUE PUEBLO — The Flying Elvi leapt from their plane a couple of minutes early to beat the dark rain clouds that threatened from above Pojoaque Pueblo's new resort.

At first, the skydivers appeared as mere specks to the 500 gathered for Wednesday's grand opening of the Buffalo Thunder Resort & Casino.

But as they opened their stunt parachutes and soared toward the parking lot, their white jumpsuits with red trim, gold-framed sunglasses and black helmets shaped like Elvis Presley hairdos left no doubt who they were impersonating.

Marketers for the new Hilton-managed hotel-casino-resort were hoping their presence would lend some Las Vegas, Nev.-style glitter to the once-sleepy Pojoaque Valley.

The Elvi, some of them as heavy as the real Elvis in his later years, didn't perform in front of the hotel as expected because of the drizzle. Instead, holding fake electric guitars, the 10 of them posed for photos with a pair of feathered show girls holding a mock-up of the iconic Las Vegas road sign, altered to say "Welcome to fabulous Santa Fe." They struck their poses beneath the hotel's drive-up canopy and inside the lobby as recorded Elvis tunes played.

Barney Stoll, a 57-year-old Miami native who joined the troupe 10 years ago, four years after moving to Nevada, said he began parachuting more than 25 years ago while working in southern Georgia. "It was just being the right place at the right time, I guess," Stoll said. "You have to have enough jumps and have all the required ratings."

Judy Lucero of Santa Fe and her sister Barbara Candelaria of Albuquerque were among those who photographed each other with The Flying Elvi. "We're going to be here all day," said Candelaria. "We're going to win some money."

Anyone who toured one of the 395 rooms in the new Hilton hotel, its spa, convention center and chef Mark Miller's Red Sage Restaurant were given $10 credit for use in slot machines at the 61,000-square-foot casino.

Some Buffalo Thunder prices might seem steep to locals. One shop sells Tommy Hilfiger socks for $17 a pair. An intricately beaded golf bag by Indian artisan Frieda Battise-Moore (Alabama Coushatta), with a set of clubs featuring beaded covers for the woods and a putter with a beaded shaft, is priced at $20,000.

Among dignitaries on hand for the grand opening — which followed the "soft opening" by four weeks — were state Attorney General Gary King, state Tourism Secretary Mike Cerletti, Santa Fe Mayor David Coss and former Mayor Larry Delgado.

Earlier, various people involved with New Mexico's largest resort spoke to the crowd, which also included two dozen members of New Mexico's smallest pueblo. Emcee Jill Momaday drew applause when she credited the resort to the vision of former Pojoaque Gov. Jake Viarrial, who died in 2004.

George Rivera, who succeeded his uncle as governor, traced the path to the modern resort from the time when ancestors settled along the banks of the Rio Pojoaque more than 1,000 years ago. "Since then, the Pueblo people have successfully survived disease, drought, famine, war and encroachments upon the land," he said.

Rivera, a sculptor whose work is displayed around the resort, described how Pojoaque almost disappeared in the early 20th century when one of the last remaining families was forced to move to Colorado to make a living. In 1932, he said, the Pojoaque clan began to reassemble but found themselves living on their ancestral lands in poverty.

"My Uncle Jacob Viarrial knew what was wrong — self-sufficiency," he said. "The pueblo couldn't rely on inadequate state and federal funding for their survival. We had to do it ourselves."

Rivera said Viarrial learned from Wendell Chino, the president of the casino-resort-owning Mescalero Apache Tribe who died in 1998, that tribal politics and business "were completely different animals. ...

"President Chino liked to say the Pueblos make pottery, the Navajos make jewelry, and the Mescaleros make money," he said. "Today, Pojoaque makes pottery, Pojoaque makes jewelry, and Pojoaque makes money."

Contact Tom Sharpe at 986-3080 or tsharpe@sfnewmexican.com.