Carrie Underwood Tribute Silverado Honors Owner’s Late Wife
Big fans of the country star, Kansas couple used American Idol alum’s music to get through some dark times.
Fans will do some crazy things to show their love and devotion to their favorite stars. For example, a Slayer fan once carved the band’s name with a scalpel into his arm, which wound up becoming part of the artwork for the San Francisco Bay Area quartet’s 1993 thrash extravaganza, Divine Intervention. Other fans are simply happy plastering posters on the walls of the shrines they build for them.
Lawrence Young of Concordia, Kansas, is a huge fan of country pop superstar and American Idol alum Carrie Underwood. Rather than put posters on the walls of his home, though, he decided to wrap his Silverado with her image, and drive it like that forever. While such a tribute would normally make his Chevy as soft as the redesigned, car-esque Ford F-150 of the mid-Nineties, Topeka NBC affiliate KSNT-TV says there’s more behind the madness of a Carrie Underwood-wrapped Silverado than what most would first see.
“You know I’m pretty lucky, who else gets to drive around with Carrie Underwood all the time?” said Young. “The radio has never been played in this truck. [It’s] Carrie Underwood music all the time. My wife and I have loved Carrie Underwood music from the time she was on American Idol in 2005.”
His wife, Kathi, had been fighting the numerous symptoms of fibromyalgia for quite some time, reports KSNT-TV. In 2010, Kathi underwent two surgeries to deal with the disease, only for the second surgery to go awry.
“They said she would regain consciousness, and I could see her in an hour,” said Young. “Well, one hour went by, six hours went by, 24 hours went by, she hadn’t regained consciousness.”
The surgery damaged her brain, rendering her speechless. Doctors told Young she would never speak again, but he would find a way to return her voice, all with the help of Underwood’s music.
“So I immediately started playing Carrie’s music when we put her in the bed at home,” said Young, “and within the first 48 hours we saw more activity.”
The activity was short-lived. Nine weeks after the surgery, Kathi passed away, but not before she spoke her last words to her husband.
“‘Carrie music help through a rough time,'” Young said.
“I did this to honor my wife and honor Carrie because without Carrie’s music I would have lost my wife nine weeks earlier,” said Young of his tribute Silverado. “She loved Carrie Underwood and I know she’s smiling.”
According to Taste of Country, Young asked his son, a graphic designer, to create the unique Carrie Underwood wrap for the Silverado, a feat which took 10 days and $2,000 to pull off. Another Underwood superfan once offered Young $175,000 for the truck, only to be turned down, as it was never about the money for him.
The tribute Silverado will soon hit the road to Wichita in September, where Underwood will perform with Maddie & Tae and Runaway June on the next stop of her “Cry Pretty Tour 360.” Young hopes to meet the singer. Despite having attended five of her shows with Kathi, he’s never met her in person before. Fingers crossed.
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