Bob SHARP^{[1, 2, 3]}

• Name	Bob SHARP  [4]
  Gender	Male
  Education	a student at Edmunds High School, where he lettered in baseball, football and track and field; went to college in Miami, where he’d attend races at the Hialeah Speedway  [4]
  HIST	He was inducted into the Sumter Sports Hall of Fame at a banquet on 1 Nov 2007 at the Salvation Army Boys and Girls Club facility on Council Street, Sumter, South Carolina. He continued to race until about 2000. He was twice selected by fans as the “Most Popular Driver” at Sumter Speedway. Sumter Item to reveal Top 125 Sports Figures with anniversary celebration Posted Saturday, October 12, 2019 6:00 am BY DENNIS BRUNSON In celebration of its 125th anniversary, The Sumter Item is going to select the Top 125 Sports Figures during that period in Sumter, Clarendon and Lee counties. The list will be revealed in reverse order starting on Wednesday with Nos. 125-111. The remaining lists will be contain 10 figures beginning on Friday. Those lists will appear every Wednesday and Friday until it reaches the top 10 in December. At that point, one story will be released in each edition until the top figure is revealed. The list will include people who affected sports in our area both in competition and in other ways as well. Coinciding with the list reveal, we'll be asking readers to reveal their Top 10 sports figures in Item history, and we'll be hosing Autograph Giveaway contests featuring our famous local sports figures. The Sumter Item's Top 125 Sports Figures 81-90 Posted Friday, October 25, 2019 3:45 pm In celebration of its 125th anniversary, The Sumter Item has selected the Top 125 Sports Figures during that period in Sumter, Clarendon and Lee counties. The list will be revealed in reverse order, appearing every Wednesday and Friday until it reaches the top 10 in December. At that point, one story will be released in each edition until the top figure is revealed. The list will include people who affected sports in our area both in competition and in other ways as well. 90) Julie Larson - Julie Larson was a 6-foot-3-inch standout basketball player for Thomas Sumter Academy in the early 1980s. She finished her career with 3,096 points and averaged 29.3 points her senior year. She went on to Clemson and averaged 9.9 points for her career, including 13.8 in her final season. 89) Kevin Ireland - Kevin Ireland was a speedy back for Sumter High School in the early 1970s and played some college football at Tennessee-Martin. However, he has made his mark in Sumter over the airwaves, serving as the play-by-play voice for both Sumter High football and the Sumter P-15’s for close to three decades. 88) Bob Sharp - Bob Sharp, along with the next two selections, was one of the top dirt track racers in the area when the sport was at its peak. Sharp won over 200 main events and seven track championships at Sumter Speedway. He also became the track promoter at Sumter Speedway. 87) H.C. Pritchard - Pritchard drove the dirt tracks, but he also made a mark in the NASCAR Lat Model Sportsman Division, competing against the likes of Ralph Earnhardt, David Pearson, Lee Petty, Ned Jarrett and Cale Yarborough. In 1960, Pritchard won track titles at Sumter Speedway, Edmunds Speedway, Ashwood Speedway and Columbia Speedway. 86) Slick Gibbons - Edward “Slick” Gibbons won over 250 dirt track races in his career. Gibbons won multiple division titles at multiple tracks throughout the state. He also competed throughout the Southeast, winning the Bucks Stove 100 at Myrtle Beach Speedway in 1971. 85) Donald Hardy - Donald Hardy was a 4-sport standout athlete for East Clarendon High School, from where he graduated in 1966. He quarterbacked the Wolverines to a football state title in 1965 and was an all-state performer. He was a 3-time most valuable player on the baseball team, starting at shortstop for four years. He went on to sign a professional contract with the New York Yankees. 84) Bucko Edens - Thomas “Bucko” Edens was a standout football player at Edmunds High School who went on to an outstanding career at Newberry College. He was an all-state, all Little Four and second team Little All-American with the Indians. He would later become the longtime athletic officer for the Sumter P-15’s. 83) Joey Taylor - Joey Taylor graduated from Manning High School where he was a 5-year starter in baseball and a 4-year starter in football. He went on to Clemson where he was a first team All-Atlantic Coast Conference performer. He holds the Clemson record for most extra-base hits in a game with five – two home runs and three doubles – against South Carolina in 1962. 82) Brian Mance - Brian Mance graduated from Manning High School in 1999 and was a standout football player, ran track and played baseball. He won the 3A state championship in the 100-meter dash as a junior. He went on to Clemson and a was a first-team All-Atlantic Coast Conference performer and fourth team All-America as a senior. He had short stints in the NFL with Washington and Chicago. 81) Richard Jones - Richard Jones came from a baseball family, and he has easily helped carry on the legacy with Wilson Hall, the Sumter P-15’s, The Citadel and finally as a professional player. Jones was a catcher who swung a big bat. He had 17 home runs in his final year with the P-15’s, then went to The Citadel where he was the Southern Conference Freshman of the Year and a Freshman All-American. As a junior, he was first team All-Southern Conference, batting .378 with 17 homers. He was drafted by the Chicago Cubs in the ninth round of the 2009 MLB draft. He played four years in the organization, hitting 24 home runs one season. BOB SHARP • 1942 - 2021 'He never met a stranger': Remembering Sumter businessman, racing star Bob Sharp Bob Sharp was known for his skills in business and on the race track. PHOTO PROVIDED Posted Tuesday, September 28, 2021 6:00 am BOB SHARP AT A GLANCE Born in Birmingham, Alabama Member of Sumter First Church of God Opened Sharp Construction Co. Owned A Mobile Storage Co. Owned Stateburg Housing Center Greater Sumter Chamber of Commerce Business Person of the Year, 2007 Sumter Speedway owner, operator Sumter County Sports Hall of Fame BY TIM LEIBLE tim@theitem.com Bob Sharp was a lot of things to a lot of people. To some, he was a boss or a business partner, known throughout Sumter as a savvy businessman. To others, a racing star who ran Sumter Speedway and saw his fair share of wins on the dirt track. Perhaps what he was to most people was simpler than any of those things. He was a giver. Through the years, Sharp made a lot of money though Sharp Construction Company, A Mobile Storage Company or any of the other businesses he played a role in throughout Sumter. As his daughter Allison Watford notes, he was never too precious with it. "His famous saying was that he never saw a U-Haul behind a hearse. People can get out there and work and fill their bank accounts, but know that one day it's going to be left," Watford said. "Obviously, he was a very successful businessman. God was very good to him, and he liked money, but he never worshipped money. It was never something he held onto tightly. He seemed to give a lot of it away." Watford is proud of the example Sharp set for her and her three sisters. The late businessman never did anything for the attention. He just wanted to help people. "He would really give the shirt off of his back to anybody," Watford said. "I heard from a friend who my dad gave him his own car and trailer and said he could use it to move his mother to Florida. Just anywhere from that to secretly finding out that someone was in need and taking care of them. He just did so many good deeds, and there's probably some we'll never know about, but he never wanted credit for it either." One of Sharp's long-time business partners was Don Goodson. While he learned a lot from Sharp on the business side, he also noticed the way Sharp treated those around him. As the son of a minister, Sharp had a particular soft spot for making sure ministers in town had the means to retire. Acts like that were second nature to Sharp. "If you knew him, you knew he was a generous person, but people don't have an idea of what he did for people that were sick or ministers," Goodson said. "Just a lot of people he would make sure, financially, that they were taken care of. He had a big impact on the community, and there were a lot of people he helped along the way to make sure they were comfortable in their lives." Dargan Watts helped Sharp get into racing at Sumter Speedway. He eventually nominated him for the Sumter Sports Hall of Fame. While Sharp was an excellent racer, Watts said the most impressive thing about the late driver was his ability to connect with people. "He was the kind of fella that even the people that didn't like him, loved him. He never met a stranger," Watts said. "He could meet a stranger, but when he left that stranger, that person would feel like they've known him their whole life. He's just that type. He could fit in with anybody. That was why he was so successful. He could fit in with the lowest on the totem pole or the person on the top of the flagpole. It made no difference." Of course, Sharp wasn't exclusively a gentle giant. As Goodson notes, he was giving, but he also wasn't afraid of a fight. "He was a big man, a statue, the most generous person you've ever been with. You'd never go anywhere with him where he didn't pick up the tab on everything. He was so giving," Goodson said. "One thing about him, he was kind of a bear, too. He wouldn't take nothing off of anybody. He'd throw down at the drop of a hat. He was a tough dude. He never asked for it, but if you ever ran across someone that was the ass of the crowd, you did wanna do that around Bob. He would set them straight in a minute." MAKING A NAME AT SUMTER SPEEDWAY That attitude of a bear was useful at Sumter Speedway. While his obituary, which ran on Sept. 16 in The Sumter Item, lists his wins above 200, Watts estimates Sharp won in the ballpark of 300 races during his career. Watts was the one who let Sharp take his first test drive at Sumter Speedway in either 1969 or 1970. While it wasn't the perfect start, Watts could see Sharp's tenacity to succeed. "Bob wanted to go out to the track and make some practice laps and learn how to drive, really. I don't think Bob had ever driven a straight shift before. I sent him out there, and he must have spun that car 75 or 80 times, but he was determined to master it. By golly, he did," Watts said. "This was about mid-season in '69 or '70. We had a Thanksgiving race, and Bob won his first race. He went at it like Bob did everything, he tried to do the best that he could and put every ounce of energy into it. He did the same thing in business and anything else that he tackled." Watts was a longtime promoter at Sumter Speedway and handed the reins to Sharp upon moving to Louisiana in 1976. He had a front-row seat to some of Sharp's most entertaining races. "There was one weekend Bob came down to race at Myrtle Beach, and he'd never raced on asphalt before, and I told someone that he might just spin out somewhere along the way," Watts said. "That guy came back sometime along the way and said, 'Dargan, look at your man, Bob! He's leading the race.' Which he was, until about three laps later when he was turned in the other direction because Bob didn't know you were supposed to slow down headed into the turn. "Afterwards he said, 'I felt like I was on a spaceship, I've never had so many G-forces in all my life. I could've stuck my hand out the right side and touched the pavement.' But he mastered it. He stuck with it and kept right on. He was just that kind of fella." Sumter Speedway was a home away from home for the Sharp family. Watford remembers working the concession stand back in the day and realizing just how well-loved her father was at the track. "One night and I was able to hand this gentleman a Coke, but I was walking from the drink machine to the counter and it was too full, so I took a sip of the Coke," Watford recalled with a laugh. "I was very young, so I thought the best way to solve that problem was to drink it myself. I handed it to the man, and my mom said, 'Oh my Lord, Allison, you can't do that, let's get him a new Coke.' And he was like, 'No, I want to drink that Coke. Bob Sharp's daughter just drank out of my drink, don't you dare take that away from me.' "People really looked up to him in a way that my son - who is now 24 - said when he was growing up that all he heard was granny-Bob drove race cars, and he thought he was like a Dale Earnhardt until he got older and realized he raced a dirt track in Sumter." When Sharp eventually quit racing, his family was by his side. "The last race he won, he had all of us there, and he had six grandchildren that were born and were at that race," Watford said. "HE JUST WANTED TO MAKE PEOPLE LAUGH" Sharp was tough guy, but he was always quick to make a joke. Sometimes, those two things went hand in hand. "He backed down for nobody," Watts said. "He and this fella didn't get along too well on the racetrack, and we had two deputies out on the racetrack. Bob and this individual started throwing punches at one another, and the deputies came over and separated them and said, 'If you try that again, I'm going to fine you each $100.' Bob pulled out his wallet and pulled out two $100 bills and said, 'Here's my fine and his, too, now leave us alone.'" Most of Sharp's jokes were less violent. Watford remembers the little things, like unplugging the cleaner's vacuum from around the corner just for a chuckle. "He was such a great dad. He was a great friend and a practical joker," Watford said. "He loved to pull silly pranks. He just always wanted to make people laugh." Goodson often had a front row seat for those jokes. In Sharp's later years, Goodson would often captain Sharp's yacht for trips from Charleston to Hilton Head. The burly businessman would often request a pit stop near the golf courses along the beach. "If we were going past a golf course, he'd want to hold up until someone was starting to tee up, and when they'd get into their backswing, he'd want to blow the horn. Just a fun guy," Goodson said. "Maybe it wasn't as fun for the golfers, but we sure got a good laugh out of it. One time, a guy got so mad that he teed up and started hitting the driver at the boat, and that just made us laugh that much more."  [1, 2, 3, 4]
  Occupation	one of the most respected local drivers, he has been a part of racing in Sumter almost as long as the speedway  [4]
  _UID	F9BDD8E8C09745EE920F78780084DE9588C6
  Person ID	I214567	Singleton and Related Families
  Last Modified	30 Sep 2021

  
  

• Sources

  [S27152] Sumter Item to reveal Top 125 Sports Figures with anniversary celebration. [S27155] TOP 125 Sports Figures, (#90-#81). [S29252] Bob Sharp * 1942-2021 ‘He never met a stranger’: Remembering businessman, racing star Sharp. [S9591] Sharp to be inducted in Sumter Hall.