Sascha Wil­son

So­ca icon Austin “Su­perblue” Lyons re­turned to his home­town of Point Fortin on Wednes­day to wit­ness the re­nam­ing of a street in his ho­n­our.

The first of three streets to be re­named that day, the event marked the launch of the Point Fortin Bor­ough Cor­po­ra­tion street sig­nage pro­gramme.

The sev­en-time So­ca Monarch ti­tle hold­er grew up on the street that was giv­en his name.

It was orig­i­nal­ly known as Bap­tist Street. Wear­ing his trade­mark blue out­fit with match­ing blue shoes, Lyons gave brief re­marks thank­ing Point Fortin may­or Kennedy Richards Jr and the coun­cil for the ho­n­our.

Lyons said he went to school with the may­or’s fa­ther and they played crick­et and foot­ball to­geth­er.

He said it was an ho­n­our to be in Point Fortin which will al­ways be his home.

Proud­ly dis­play­ing the street name on his Face­book page, Lyons said: “This is the street I live on grow­ing up. Thank God I am alive to see it. It was an ho­n­our to get this sign call, Austin Lyons, from the May­or of Point Fortin and the Min­is­ter of Rur­al De­vel­op­ment and Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment.

“Thank you very much and I am hap­py to see this hap­pen. 40 years in the mu­sic in­dus­try.”

Rur­al De­vel­op­ment and Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Min­is­ter Kaz­im Ho­sein, who was part of the event, said on his Face­book page he was ho­n­oured to cel­e­brate a liv­ing leg­end in the place where his sto­ry be­gan.

He added that icons should be cel­e­brat­ed while they are alive.

“Far too of­ten, we wait un­til it’s too late to ho­n­our those who have made ex­cep­tion­al con­tri­bu­tions to our na­tion’s his­to­ry. Whether it be sports per­son­al­i­ties, cul­tur­al icons, or com­mu­ni­ty role mod­els, I would like to see more street names re­flect­ing the con­tri­bu­tions of Trin­bag­o­ni­ans to their coun­try,” Ho­sein said

The may­or, per­ma­nent sec­re­tary Des­dra Bas­combe, coun­cil­lor Reynold Car­ring­ton, Cor­po­ra­tion CEO Don­na­may Tay­lor and oth­er coun­cil mem­bers were al­so present at the func­tion.