Diorama could inspire state tournament bowlers

If you want something good to happen, experts recommend visualizing it first.

So, if I bowled in a league at Belle Plaine Bowl, I'd get my inspiration from the diorama above the entrance. Up there, behind glass, the 10 pins stand at attention as a black bowling ball approaches the pocket.

Steeeerike!

I can just imagine the 350 bowlers entering for the Legion State Tournament team competition doing the same. They'll be here in March and April.

“We do get comments about it,” says Glenn Clark, who bought the bowling alley in 2004 with his wife, Kelly. “I've got to get up there and change the light bulb.”

That's so the pins and ball light up at night.

“You need to clean them when you're up there, too,” adds Kelly with a laugh.

Obviously, the Clarks will do a lot of sprucing up to host one of the larger events in the 50-year history of the bowling alley. It opened Aug. 1, 1959, with six lanes and added a couple more later.

“I think this is the smallest house that's ever had it,” Glenn says.

The team competition will be on these eight lanes, while singles and doubles competition takes place at the 12-lane Venture Lanes in Tama.

The Clarks, who attend the annual American Legion tournament, became hosts when they heard no one else had offered.

That's what you do when you own a bowling alley – get as many people through the door as possible with special events such as their own Iron Man tournament. Beginning at 1 p.m. on Feb. 20, the 32 bowlers who paid $80 each will roll 20 consecutive games, finishing up after midnight.

“It's fun, but it's a lot of work,” says Glenn, 47, a full-time electrician who visualized the possibilities of owning this place in 2003 when he helped install automatic scorekeepers. He bowled with owner Bernie Higgins who talked about retiring.

“It was his idea,” Kelly says. “He talked me into it. And it took him a long time to convince me.”

But now, even if bookkeeping, serving, cooking and cleaning mean long days, Kelly, 40, kind of likes it. Especially when she repairs a pin setter.

“These big guys look down (the alley),” Kelly says. “They say, ‘She just fixed that?' I love it.”

Lots of folks love the bowling alley, including five who've bowled in leagues since it opened.

“It's a great place,” says Shirley Rieck, one of those longtime bowlers. “A lot has changed.”

Most certainly, walls were relocated, the kitchen has expanded, scorekeepers added. And you've got that great diorama above the door.

Steeeerike!