Arrival of Main Street Lanes reverses local trend for sport

With one bold action last year, Jim Maevers reversed a trend.

By turning a former grocery store in Jackson into Main Street Lanes, Maevers added the first new bowling alley in 25 years to an area that has seen many more shuttered over the last few decades.

"I saw an opportunity in the Jackson area for a place where families could go and have fun and spend quality time together," Maevers told the Southeast Missourian last year. "My philosophy is to look at the community and ask, 'What does Jackson need?'"

Serving more than just Jackson, Main Street Lanes offered a boost for the game in Southeast Missouri. Geared toward families more than league bowlers and offering some of the new technology such as automatic bumpers and state-of-the-art lanes, Main Street Lanes also has an impact on serious enthusiats. In addition to leagues, the 18-lane facility has hosted Parker Bohn of the PBA Tour and in November will host the Missouri senior bowling championship.

"It's pretty neat," Loy Welker, president of the Cape Girardeau District Bowling Association, said of Main Street Lanes. "They cater to the family and have a lot of things for kids."

Welker said the association has linked Main Street Lanes and Cape Girardeau's West Park Bowl in a bid for the 2006 state tournament. The event requires 50 lanes, and West Park has 32.

"That would be phenomenal," Main Street manager John Litzelfelner said. "We will know in June if we got the bid."

Litzelfelner, who has been involved in bowling in the area for 15 years since his days as a junior, came on board with Main Street Lanes during the development process.

"To watch the place transform into what it is was absolutely amazing," he said. "It took four crews of people working continuously to make this happen. There was no shortcut taken as far as entertainment value in the whole center."

Prior to the opening of the new center, the number of lanes in the area had dwindled along with the number of league bowlers.

Jackson Lanes, opened in 1958, has 12 lanes. K of C Lanes in Perryville moved into its current 16-lane facility in 1977. West Park moved to its facilityin 1980.

"Back when I started, we had Cape Lanes, Jackson Lanes, Lutheran Lanes, Lutesville," said Merrill Simmons, who served for 23 years as secretary of the regional association. "Chaffee burned down in the 1970s and wasn't rebuilt. You had old Pladium Lanes on Themis Street.

"Now we're down to three."

Southeast Missouri State University even had a 10-lane facility in the late 1970s to teach the sport.

Simmons estimates the Cape association's membership has fallen to about 900 from a high mark of 1,500 in the 1960s.

"Attrition has a lot to do with it," Simmons said. "Some quit to go golfing."

The Cape Girardeau's bowling association has been in existence since the 1930s and offers an annual tournament for teams, individuals and doubles.

Organized bowling in Southeast Missouri can be traced as far back as 1904, when regular coverage of a weekly league at the Broadway Bowling Association appeared on the pages of the Daily Republican.

Back then, 180 was considered a very good score.

Changes in the game have produced a noticeable increase in scores.

Simmons said "there are probably 60 or 70 bowlers with 200 averages" in the association's tournament, which took place earlier this month.

"Years ago, not 15 or 20 bowlers had 190 averages," he added. "With the youth bowling, and the lane conditions are better in the new houses with the synthetic lanes and automatic oilers. And of course, bowling balls are different. There are probably 400 different balls a player can choose from compared to 30 or 40.

"People want to bowl good scores so they'll come back and bowl again. If you get discouraged, you won't come back."

While Main Street Lanes can't guarantee a good score, Litzelfelner said they try to guarantee a good time. And he noted that bowling is making a comeback with those people who appreciate a good time as much as a good score.

"The sport of bowling has been undergoing one of the most remarkable changes, right before my eyes," Litzelfelner said. "Bowling was popular with a specific group of people, now with things like cosmic bowl, it's become more entertainment.

"The league bowlers think bowling is declining because fewer people are bowling in leagues. They just don't realize more and more and more people are bowling just for recreation.

"Last year, open bowling exceeded league bowling in revenues for the first time in the sport's history. There's a whole new segment of people I'd never known had an interest in bowling."

So while the construction of Main Street Lanes may have reversed one trend about the number of places to bowl, it tapped into a segment of people looking for a place to bowl.

"That's the vision of the Maevers family," Litzelfelner said. "They don't make a decision without doing their homework."