This week is proof that you never know when a lifelong interest may strike. Or at least pick up the spare.
It’s city tournament week at Flint Hills Lanes, a week when nearly 300 bowlers will come down at least once to bowl a few frames, have some good times and maybe win a few coupons. Although the tournament began Monday, entry is still open to anyone who belongs to a bowling league sanctioned by the U.S. Bowling Congress.
Bowling is a game that tends to draw the dedicated. Harold Burnett, who now lives in Broadview Towers, started bowling longer ago than he can remember.
He quit once when his wife got ill, then resumed the game in 1988. He’s kept going ever since, despite a problem with his hand that made him start bowling left-handed.
“It gives me good exercise,” said Burnett, who turns 89 on Feb. 16. “I just love the game, that’s all. I’ve always loved the game.”
About 110 women and 175 men are bowling this week in the tournament, some coming from as far as Council Grove. The DeWitt family and their friends Bob Kopp and Humbert Rosetta are a little closer in, but still far enough — the three DeWitts live in the northeast corner of the county near Harveyville, while the other two come from Osage City.
All five have bowled in Emporia for five years or so, first coming here when the bowling alley at Osage City closed down and then fell down. It hasn’t slowed them down much. Lois and Neal DeWitt and their son Steve come down with Kopp to bowl twice a week, Sundays and Wednesdays. Rosetta makes it down once a week. And none of them are about to miss a tournament. In fact, Kopp has been going to nationals since 1989.
“I want to live and bowl long enough to get to 25 years,” he said.
Neal DeWitt and Rosetta are the long-timers of the group, with a bowling experience that reaches back into the 1950s.
“We couldn’t both afford to be bowling at that point,” said Lois DeWitt, Neal’s wife. “We were farmers. So Neal bowled and I stayed home.”
That was then. But these days, Lois DeWitt is every bit as hooked as her husband. There are a lot of good friends at the bowling alley. And it’s a great excuse to vent when the ball doesn’t roll quite right.
“We come down here and gripe and complain,” she said smiling.
“If I didn’t come down here and get frustrated, I’d have to go beat up somebody,” Kopp joked.
The tournament ends Sunday. Entries will be accepted until 1 p.m. that day.