Sharon Sharp | Lottery director, 69
Sharon Sharp, 69, former director of the Illinois and California lotteries, has died.
Christopher Sharp said his mother died of lung cancer Sunday at Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago.
Mrs. Sharp was the Elk Grove Township clerk when she became the GOP candidate for Illinois secretary of state in 1978, a race she lost in a landslide to incumbent Alan Dixon.
She later became deputy director of marketing with the Department of Commerce and Community Affairs, and then was tapped by Gov. Jim Thompson in 1987 to head the lottery.
She resigned in 1991, and was director of the California lottery for two years. - AP
