State tourney rolls into town

By By Mike Carson / Bowling Columnist
April 30, 2002
Roll up your shirt sleeves and get out the welcome mats because the 55th Annual Mississippi State Bowling Tournament is rolling into town! For the next six weekends bowlers from across the state will be invading Dixie Bowl Lanes in Meridian vying for state championship titles in Team, Doubles, and Singles events. Already over 200 Teams and nearly 500 Doubles and Singles entries have been received and the entries continue to arrive. If you have not already entered you may still do so, but many shifts are already full so contact Jim Lacy for available spots. The Meridian Bowling Association will be running brackets each weekend during the tournament and will also be cooking up lots of good food. Volunteers are still needed to assist bowlers each shift. Contact Ronnie Thomas, Ken Miller or any member of the Board of Directors to sign up to help in any of these areas. We encourage all of our local bowlers to become involved in the tournament either by participating or volunteering. We want this tournament to be the biggest and the best the state has seen, and it is only with your help that we can achieve this goal.
Final results are in for the recently completed Spring Fling No-Tap Tournament. Both the Men's and Women's divisions were decided by a single pin. Jan Kasper squeaked by Shelia Dearman with a 770 while Lisa Willis took third with a 748. Dennis Hobson fired an 847 to edge out Ray McKay in the Men's division. M.A. Copeland finished third with an 828 and Mike Cothern placed fourth with an 802. The tournament and the companion raffle raised $935 for the Meridian YABA. Leon Fike and Candace Blackmon would like to thank all who participated and assisted in working the tournament. The money raised will help our local youth participate in the Mississippi State YABA tournament which will be coming to Meridian in June and July. It was an excellent tournament and everyone who participated thoroughly enjoyed themselves. Congratulations on a job well done!
Due to the length of this week's column I won't be able to recap all of the high scores and series from last week but a big pat on the back goes out to Mike Cothern who recorded his fourth career 300 last week in the Queen City league. Mike went on to record the week's high series as well by finishing the evening with a nice 786. Shirley Gaines had the high game for the ladies with a 236 while Shelia Dearman took the high series with a 631. Congratulations go out to the Q-L-S team which took home the gold in the Dixie Belles league. The team consisted of Cathy Jones, Johnnie Johnson, Gina Robertson, Charlotte Clark, and Chris McNeil. Other leagues will be concluding their seasons in the next few weeks.
Don't forget to make your plans for the summer leagues. The highlight of this year's schedule is the Adult-Jr. Baseball League in which the participants will be eligible to receive a bowling ball with the logo of their favorite baseball team. Contact Dennis Hobson for more information.