Maine news, sports, weather from Portland Press Herald / Maine Sunday Telegram, Portland, Maine

August 24, 2012

Maine woman to sing 'God Bless America' at Red Sox game

Sunday is Maine Day at Fenway Park, where Sharon Buck's lifelong dream will come true.

By Amy Calder acalder@mainetoday.com
Staff Writer

Sharon Buck's lifelong dream to sing at a Red Sox game is coming true.

The 37-year-old Clinton woman will sing "God Bless America" Sunday during the seventh inning stretch.

Sunday is Maine Day at Fenway Park, where the Sox are slated to play the Kansas City Royals.

Buck will be standing on the field, belting out the Irving Berlin tune, as Kate Smith did on a record Buck's family listened to when she was a child.

"I'm not nervous," Buck said Wednesday. "I'm just totally excited. I feel like I'm going to burst. I really do. It means the world to me to have people believe in me so much."

A radio personality with country music station B98.5, of Augusta, and the lead singer for the central Maine country band Borderline Express, Buck applied in February to sing at a Red Sox game.

She didn't hear back, so she applied to sing at a Sea Dogs game in Portland, was accepted, and sang the "The Star Spangled Banner" there in May.

Then, she got a call Aug. 15 from a Red Sox spokesman, telling her that she had been chosen to sing at Sunday's game, which starts at 1:30 p.m.

"This was a complete surprise, out of the blue," she said. "I never thought they'd call."

Dan Lyons, manager of entertainment for the Red Sox, confirmed Thursday that Buck will sing between the top and the bottom of the seventh inning.

A lifelong Sox fan, Buck plans to attend the game with her 5-year-old son, Anderson; her boyfriend, Chad Wood; and her friend, Amber Batchelder, all of Clinton.

You might say Buck, who co-hosts a show on B98.5 with Randy McCoy called "The Morning Buzz," was born to perform. She is bubbly, energetic and loves to laugh.

When she was 7 and living in Connecticut with her eight siblings and her parents, Ray and Mary Everlith, there was always music in the house. Her father sang in his church and Buck remembers he would literally sweep her mother off her feet and start singing and dancing around the room.

"My sisters, Jenny, who was 5, and Wendy, 6, and I sang three-part harmony for 'You are My Sunshine,' for all the relatives," Buck recalled. "I always sang the harmony part. I loved to sing harmony when a song came on the radio."

The family moved to Maine in 1983, when she was 8. She'd sit by the radio in her Fairfield home on Saturday mornings listening to "Country Countdown." She knew all the singers' names and all the songs -- and could identify a songwriter just by listening to a piece.

"I love music -- I absolutely love it," she said.

At Lawrence High School, she sang in chorus and show choir and was in a couple of plays. After graduating in 1992, she enrolled at what is now Kennebec Valley Community College and earned a degree in business accounting.

In the 1990s, she traveled to Florida to see if she could make it in the music business, but had no formal musical training.

"Every door was slammed," she recalled. "I came back here and sold CDs to try to make a name for myself. I think the biggest break came when I sang with the band Alabama at the Civic Center in the late '90s. I held up a huge sign saying, 'Randy can you sing with me, please?' They brought me up on stage and I sang with them."

People started recognizing her. Two years ago, she was at a toll booth on Interstate 295 and a man asked if she was the one who sang with Alabama all those years ago in Augusta.

(Continued on page 2)

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