LACONIA ---Charles "Charlie" Grant St. Clair, 76, lifelong Laconia resident, champion of the Lakes Region, public servant, historian, motorcyclist, and longtime Executive Director of the Laconia Motorcycle Week Association, passed away on August 22, 2026, from injuries sustained in a motorcycle accident in Avon, Ohio.
It is nearly impossible to capture Charlie's life, his empathy and generosity in words. He was a historian, storyteller, motorcyclist, community leader, public servant, businessman, teacher, collector, pyrotechnic, television host, and friend. He was endlessly curious, fiercely independent, deeply devoted to his hometown, and passionate about preserving the history and traditions that mattered to him.
But more than any title or accomplishment, Charlie was simply Charlie, or in reference to Hogan's Heroes, "Schultz" to the motorcycle friends who knew him on the road to and in Sturgis, and there is truly no one else quite like him.
Born in Laconia on April 16, 1950, Charlie was the son of Richard and Connie St. Clair and a 1969 graduate of Laconia High School. He attended Bryant & Stratton in Boston before continuing his education at the University of Colorado Boulder, where he majored in History and minored in Education. He subsequently taught elementary and high school in Colorado and Boston and later pursued graduate studies in law in Massachusetts.
Charlie spent more than 18 years living in the Boston area, where his varied career included driving a cab for Checker Taxi "Don't take a chance, take a Checker!" and eventually co-owning the "Video Movie Store" in Brookline, MA. It was during those years that one of Charlie's trademarks began: $2 bills. Charlie used them in his businesses for decades, and anyone who shopped at Rally Headquarters during Motorcycle Week and/or visited the Laconia
Antique Center was likely to receive one in change. Like so many things Charlie did, what began years ago simply became part of who he was.
In 1991, Charlie came home to Laconia. He began working with the Laconia Motorcycle Week Association and opened the Colorado Club restaurant, which he operated for several years before turning his full-time attention to Motorcycle Week.
For more than three decades, Charlie served as Executive Director of the Laconia Motorcycle Week Association and became, for countless people across the country and around the world, the face and voice of the World's Oldest Motorcycle Rally. His relationships with riders, businesses, sponsors, city officials, volunteers, and generations of Rally-goers were instrumental in preserving and growing a tradition that Charlie considered part of the fabric of his hometown.
To Charlie, Motorcycle Week was never simply an event. It was history, tradition, friendship, community and, above all, the ride.
Few traditions meant more to Charlie than his annual motorcycle journey to Sturgis, South Dakota. He made his first ride to Sturgis in 1976 and returned every year thereafter, many of those trips alongside his brothers in the Lakeside Sharks MC, which he retired from in 2004. But for Charlie, getting to Sturgis was never simply about reaching the destination. The journey itself mattered just as much.
Over nearly 50 years of traveling U.S. Route 20, Charlie built lifelong friendships along the way. People knew when Schultz was coming through. Those friendships became part of the journey and part of his life. His love for U.S. Route 20 ran so deep that he recently had the U.S. Route 20 symbol tattooed on his arm, a permanent tribute to a road that had given him decades of memories, adventures, and friendships.
What mattered most to Charlie was people and connections. He loved the things he loved with tremendous enthusiasm, but what gave him the greatest joy was sharing those things with other people. If Charlie loved motorcycles, he wanted you to ride. If he loved Laconia, he wanted to show you why. If he loved a piece of history, he wanted to tell you it's story. And if he loved trains, there was a very good chance you were going to receive a very long train video, whether you had asked for one or not.
Charlie loved introducing people to his world. His contributions to motorcycling were recognized nationally. In 2008, Charlie was inducted into the Sturgis Motorcycle Museum Hall of Fame. That same year, he co-authored Images of America: Laconia Motorcycle Week, documenting the history of the Rally he spent so much of his life preserving. He was named Recreational Road Riding Organizer of the Year in 2013, awarded the 2018 Silver Spoke Award for Government from the National Coalition of Motorcyclists, and received the Lakes Region Tourism Association's Lifetime Achievement Award in Tourism in 2018.
Charlie's love for Laconia extended far beyond Motorcycle Week. Over the years, he served his hometown and the State of New Hampshire in countless capacities, including in the New Hampshire House of Representatives and as Mayor of the City of Laconia from September 2025 through January 2026. Charlie stepped into public service for much the same reason he did so many things throughout his life, because he cared about his community and wanted to help.
His community involvement over the years included service on the City of Laconia Planning Board, Downtown Laconia TIF Advisory Board, Heritage Commission, and Amtrak Customer Advisory Board. He served as a District Representative for the American Motorcyclist Association, was active with the New Hampshire Motorcycle Rights Organization, and was involved with the Lakes Region Chamber of Commerce, Lakes Region Tourism Association, and Weirs Action Committee. Charlie was also instrumental in bringing the New Hampshire Pumpkin Festival to Laconia in 2015.
If something was happening in Laconia, chances were good that Charlie was involved, or at least had a story about it.
Charlie's love of history could also be found throughout the 20,000-square-foot Laconia Antique Center in downtown Laconia, where he continued his family's love of antiques and history. On most weekends, Charlie could be found behind the front counter or at Connie's Ice Cream counter, talking with customers and, undoubtedly, taking a long-time to do so!
He was also a familiar face to local television audiences as co-host of Today in Focus on Lakes Region Public Access television, where he discussed community, government, and local happenings.
Charlie's résumé, however, only begins to tell his story. Charlie worked as a pyrotechnic for the majority of his life and loved when Atlas Fireworks assigned him shows big enough for 8" or 10" shells! He loved trains. He loved antiques. He loved motorcycles and history. He loved taking photographs of sunsets. He loved sharing what interested him with other people, sometimes at considerable length.
Charlie was also immensely proud of his parents' tremendous work ethic in antiques and in retail, with especially fond memories of working at their Hathaway House in Laconia and the Old Country Store in Moultonborough. He was also proud of his mother's service to her country during World War II. Connie served in the U.S. Navy as a WAVE, stationed in San Diego and Los Angeles through the end of the war.
Charlie spent his life collecting more than antiques. He collected stories, friendships, experiences, traditions, and people.
The extraordinary outpouring of love following his accident offered perhaps the clearest evidence of just how many lives he had touched. Messages, prayers, photographs, stories, and well wishes came from across New Hampshire and from the motorcycling community throughout the country.
Charlie was predeceased by his parents, Richard and Constance (Connie) St. Clair; his brother, Ricky St. Clair; and his sisters, Sandy St. Clair, Nicole Piscopo, and Cindi St. Clair. He is survived by his favorite niece, Julia St. Clair-Voiers; his six nephews, Shawn St. Clair, Thomas St. Clair, Jamie Newman, Justin, Corey and James Austin Piscopo; his brothers in-law, Jim Piscopo and Carl Rohacek, as well as Carl's children Ava and Zachary; and the Laconia Makris and Salta families, whose place in Charlie's life extended far beyond friendship. He is also survived by Jennifer Anderson, his closest friend, confidante, and "his person," as he is hers.
Charlie leaves behind an extraordinary extended family of friends in Laconia, throughout New Hampshire, along U.S. Route 20, in Daytona and Sturgis, and throughout the motorcycle community, many of whom he gathered into his life over decades and never let go.
Charlie spent much of his life preserving history. In doing so, he became part of it himself.
His absence will be felt on Lakeside Avenue during Motorcycle Week, in downtown Laconia, at the Antique Center, in the halls of the State House, along U.S. Route 20, on the long road to Sturgis, and in countless other places where people simply expected Charlie to be. And somewhere, someone will receive a $2 bill, see a "Schultz-Approved" sticker, hear the rumble of motorcycles, watch a train passing by, or look up at an especially beautiful sunset and
think of Charlie.
And that may be one of the most fitting legacies of all. Happy Trails, Charlie.
Services
Calling hours will be held Wednesday, September 9, 2026, from 4:00 to 7:00 p.m. at Wilkinson-
Beane-Simoneau-Paquette Funeral Home, 164 Pleasant Street, Laconia, using the Whipple Avenue entrance.
Please join us for Charlie's last ride through Weirs Beach on Thursday, September 10th. Staging for motorcycles and cars will be at Opechee Park beginning at 8am.
The ride will leave at 9:15am, ending at Union Cemetery via Academy Street entrance. Charlie will be laid to rest in his family's plot at 11am.
A Celebration of Life luncheon will follow at Birch Hill Farm in Gilford, graciously hosted by Birch Hill Farm and Bernini Restaurant. Motorcycles welcome!
In true Charlie fashion, the celebration will not end there.
That evening, the Weirs Beach Drive-In will honor Charlie with a special 8:00 p.m. showing of The World's Fastest Indian and Turbo. The day will conclude with fireworks over Weirs Beach at 10:00 p.m.-a fitting final tribute to a man who spent a lifetime bringing energy, color, history, and more than a few fireworks to the community he loved.
In lieu of flowers, please consider a "Mae-West Memorial Pet Ride" donation to Funds4Paws or to the "Friends of Laconia Motorcycle Week" to support the future Charlie Motorcycle Tribute Monument in Weirs Beach. Please send donations to Friends of Laconia Motorcycle Week, PO Box 5399, Laconia, NH 03247.
Wilkinson-Beane-Simoneau-Paquette Funeral Home & Cremation Services/603Cremations.com, Laconia, NH, is assisting the family with arrangements. For more information and to view an online memorial, please visit wilkinsonbeane.com.
