LOS ANGELES - Erin Jacobs once traded her brand new bicycle for tickets to see Michael Jackson. Now, more than 25 years later, it's her time, organizational skills and gas money that she's giving to the King of Pop.
As an organizer of two major fan groups, Jacobs is just one of thousands of supporters keeping Jackson's legacy alive - along with the pursuit of justice for his untimely death a year ago Friday.
Since then, the singer's notoriously loyal followers have traded vigils at the hospital and family home for pilgrimages to his tomb and protests at the courthouse where the doctor charged with killing Jackson will be tried.
"It's absolutely humbling that he has so much support from fans," Jacobs said in a recent interview.
A travel agent who lives in Yorba Linda, California, Jacobs made her first 80- kilometer (50-mile) trip to the Forest Lawn cemetery in Glendale, California, shortly after Jackson was buried there in September. It was a personal trip.
These days, Jacobs has gone on to coordinate monthly pilgrimages to the cemetery by the Official Michael Jackson Fans of Southern California.
Hundreds are expected at Forest Lawn on Friday to commemorate Jackson's death. The singer's tomb inside the cemetery's gothic Great Mausoleum remains closed to the public, and Friday's memorial won't change that.
But through the efforts of Jacobs and others, it's become a place where Jackson's international fan base comes to grieve. Many who can't make it in person send letters, poems, artwork and other gifts so that Jacobs and others can deliver them to the cemetery, where they are placed at the singer's tomb until new items arrive.
"A year later, it feels like it was yesterday," Jacobs said.
Another focal point for Jackson fans has become the downtown Los Angeles courthouse where Dr. Conrad Murray will be tried on an involuntary manslaughter charge for Jackson's death.
On hearing days, fans wearing sequined gloves and T-shirts calling for justice wait for hours clutching signs denouncing Murray and shout at him for the brief moments it takes him to walk from the curb to the front door.
Johnell Johnson, 19, an actress from Fontana, California, woke up at 4:30 am to get to the courthouse in time for a recent midday hearing in Murray's case. Wearing a vintage pin from Jackson's Bad era, Johnson said it was important for her to be there to support Jackson's family.
It's a sentiment echoed by many others who try to attend the proceedings. Only a handful are allowed into the courtroom, but others are content to shout their support to Jackson's parents and siblings, who occasionally stop to hug or speak to fans. At the hearing earlier this month, the singer's mother, Katherine, carried roses that fans handed her.
Fans at the cemetery Friday hope to bring more than 3,000 roses, Jacobs said, although officials don't want the memorial to include the release of doves or balloons, as was originally planned.
None of this fan passion is really new. Jackson's supporters have long been among the most devoted and vocal of any entertainer's in recent history.
Jackson mania
The money is rolling in. The bills are being paid. And all those people who said Michael Jackson might earn more in death than in life are being proved right.
Like the estates of Elvis Presley and Yves Saint Laurent, Jackson's has grown immensely since he died on June 25, 2009.
Without Jackson's lavish spending sprees, and with the help of new revenue pouring in from nostalgia over the reign of the King of Pop, estate co-executors John Branca and John McClain have dramatically turned around Jackson's finances.
A kingdom that was on the verge of collapse from more than $500 million in debt now looks to be able to support his three children and his mother and donate healthily to children's charities.
The estate has earned more than $250 million in the year since he died. Executors used some of that to pay off $70 million in debt, including the $5 million mortgage on the Jackson family compound in Encino, part of Los Angeles. The interest payments on the remaining debt are now covered by a steady flow of cash.
Gary, Indiana, the childhood hometown of Michael Jackson, is planning a tribute on Friday at his former house to mark the one-year anniversary of his death, and the mayor says his mother is among the people expected to attend.
Workers at the house on Tuesday said Katherine Jackson wanted the house spruced up for the event and visited for several days recently to plan the renovation.
A Jackson 5 exhibit has opened at the Motown Historical Museum in Detroit this week, with photographs, awards and uniforms the brothers' group wore throughout its career.
It will be open through October, with a Michael Jackson impersonator outside the museum on the weekend.
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