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09/16/2020 09:30 AMThough delayed by the pandemic, a tight-knit band of local car enthusiasts were finally able to properly pay tribute, and sent off their longtime president in style last week with a special car cruise that included poignant celebrations in honor of Lucille Sharp.
Sharp—who founded and presided over the passionate gearhead group known as the Shoreline Recycled Teenage Cruisers with her husband, Wayne Sharp—died shortly after being diagnosed with a brain tumor in March 2019. A tribute event planned for May was canceled due to the pandemic, according to the group’s secretary and treasurer, Cathy Stewart.
But on Sept. 10, Sharp’s friends, family, and fellow car fanatics were able to all come together, bringing their hot rods and custom-built vehicles to the parking lot near Panera Bread on Boston Post Road, remembering and honoring Sharp with displays of photos and memorabilia, playing her favorite music, and giving out special trophies adorned with an image of her all-time favorite vehicle: the 1957 Chevy Street Rod, a car she had been hoping to acquire at the end of her life, according to Stewart.
“She was a really good person,” Stewart said. “She loved birds and all kinds of animals, and she worked very hard on these cruises...She [always] knew every single person, every single car that was there.”
Sharp, a longtime North Guilford resident, nurtured a lifelong love of cars and was the driving force behind decades of regular car-centric events held under the banner of Recycled Teenage Cruisers—a name that Wayne Sharp came up with as a tongue-in-cheek jab at the age of most of its members, Stewart said, as most of them were in their 30s and 40s when the club was founded.
For almost 15 years, Lucille Sharp organized an annual event at Marty’s Restaurant in Westbrook, as well as another Labor Day event benefiting the Connecticut Children’s Medical Center, according to Stewart. Other cruises at locations in Guilford, including Ashley’s Ice Cream a few years back, were always exciting and highly anticipated gatherings, according to Stewart.
And though Lucille Sharp was not present last week, Stewart said she was still at the center of the cruise and still close to everyone’s hearts just as she always had been, with Teenage Cruisers mingling around their vehicles, swapping stories of their old friend.
“I think we might just do it again next year,” Stewart said.
Stewart later confirmed that the plan is to hold another cruise in the same place remembering Sharp—perhaps in the summer when the days are longer.
But no matter what the Teenage Cruisers do going forward, Sept. 10 was a special time to celebrate Sharp, putting her family “front and center,” including introducing a newborn great-grandaughter (christened with the middle name Lucille), who never got to meet her great-grandmother.
Some of Sharp’s favorite songs—the Everly Brothers’ “All I Have to Do Is Dream” among the most special—were played, which Stewart said was something Sharp would have loved.
The cars, of course, remained an important part of the event, with 57 total participants and honorees still chosen, with winners received the specialty trophy bearing Sharp’s ‘57 Street Rod.
Also displayed at the cruise, in a picture collage put together by Sharp’s daughter, was a photograph of Sharp as a child posing with that same car, a vehicle that her family owned and helped spark her many decades of love for classic cars.
It’s that love that Stewart and the Teenage Cruisers plan to carry forward, along with the memory of their dear friend.