Tennessee Voices, Episode 355: Sheri Lynn and Brenda Kay, 'The Jugg Sisters'

Downtown Nashville lately is filled with honky-tonks named after country music stars, party buses and pedal taverns, and loud music and large crowds every day, not just weekends.

That wasn't always the case. Downtown in the late 1980s was a ghost town, recall Sheri Lynn Nichols Bucy and Brenda Kay Wilkins, also known as The Jugg Sisters.

The sisters are singers and actresses who envisioned an entertaining ride for tourists on a big pink bus to show them the sites. NashTrash Tours launched in 1997.

Twenty-six years later, the sisters are looking to retire over the next several months. On this episode of the Tennessee Voices video podcast, they reflected upon their passion project and how Nashville has grown and the challenges that has come with that growth.

"We were the kings of the road," they said, about the first 10 years of business.

Now, there's a lot of competition and a whole lot more traffic as tourism has boomed. They wish the city had gotten better control of traffic.

The sisters also discussed how the COVID hiatus allowed them to spend some necessary and important time with family.

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About Tennessee Voices

The Tennessee Voices videocast is a 20-minute program, which started in March 2020 and invites leaders, thinkers and innovators who have written guest columns for a USA TODAY Network Tennessee publication to share their insights and wisdom with me and our viewers.

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Please email your ideas for future guests to me at dplazas@tennessean.com. Thank you for watching.

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David Plazas is the director of opinion and engagement for the USA TODAY Network - Tennessee. He is of Colombian and Cuban descent, has studied or worked in several Spanish-speaking countries, and was the founding editor of Gaceta Tropical in Southwest Florida. He has lived in Tennessee since 2014. Call him at (615) 259-8063, email him at dplazas@tennessean.com or tweet to him at @davidplazas.

This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Video podcast: Sheri Lynn and Brenda Kay, 'The Jugg Sisters'