PRESIDENT'S MESSAGE / Kirk S. Williams

November 2009

League prize lists
should be established by now

Hello, again. This time of year, the leaves are turning, and the position rounds are happening. Your league should have the prize list in place, with all things hopefully running smoothly.

Last month, the association inducted three people into the NCAUSBCA Hall of Fame—Terri Franklin, Rick Ketchie, and Ralph “Red” Nelson. The Senior Tournament had a successful run at Bowl America Shirley, and the latest standings are posted here. The office is hard at work getting the league data into the computer system so the membership cards can be sent out from Bowling Headquarters. We also started the annual BVL drive on November 7 on the lanes at the National Naval Medical Center.

There have been problems with the new bowl.com, USBC’s Web site, and other services from Bowling Headquarters in Arlington, Texas. Many of these problems recently were addressed on a conference call with USBC officials. Representatives from other associations also expressed their views. If you have a problem, you can contact Jason Overstreet. We currently are working with Association Development Coordinator Sharon Moen.

Along with this, we had people go to the Virginia State Fall Meeting. To say the least, there was some confusion regarding how state tournaments were awarded and some concern on how the meeting was conducted; stay tune for further information.

The annual Youth Invitational will be held in late January and early February. We will have our Annual Meeting in late February. The Women’s Championship will soon follow in early March, and the Open Championship will take place in April.

We have been looking into starting a mixed tournament; watch for more information on this site.

We are also in the process of providing a way to let our bowlers shop and get a discount from our Web site, similar to the way you can at perk spot on bowl.com. Keep an eye out for that, too. Congratulations to several of our members who excelled on the lanes on the national level:

• A fivesome known as “Exterminators,” consisting of Mark Owens Sr., of Upper Marlboro, Barry Russell of Glenn Dale, Scott Welcher of Clinton, Mitchell Smith Sr. of Camp Springs, and Charles Simms of the District tallied 2,749 to capture top honors and $1,700 in the Classified Team event at the USBC Open Championships.
• In the same tournament, two women from Bowie, Melanie Sweet and Lashawn Farrish, who led the Classified Doubles for quite some time, eventually placed second and split $3,000.
• Meanwhile, in the USBC Women’s Championships in Reno, Nev., “MD Crabs with Attitude” won the Division 2 Team competition with its 2,649 total. Waldorf’s Alice Lloyd, Wanda Jameson, and Tracey O’Leary, along with Barbara Peters of La Plata and Mandy Lloyd of Mechanicsville shared the $1,600 top prize.

If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me. I will do my best to provide you with an answer.