Rotary "Blue" Bowling Team Wins League Championship After 50-Year Drought

The Rotary "Blue" Bowling Team won the second-half season championship in the Colonial Lanes Service Club League, then faced off against the first-half champs in a winner-take-all match on Thursday, April 29, the last night of the 2009-10 season. It was a squeaker, but our boys emerged victorious and won the trophy as season-long League Champions. League veterans cast back through their collective memories and concluded this was the first championship for Rotary in about fifty years. Bill Stegath probably could verify this, having been on an Ann Arbor Rotary bowling team for that long, but he wasn't bowling that night. Captain of the Blue Team is Dick Elwell, but he and Lynn have been on one of their annual super-long-distance cruises for the past few weeks, so he wasn't there to experience the half-season or all-season championship firsthand either. Substitute Captain Norman Herbert has held the reins ably in his absence, and he was joined in the season championship match by Al Burdi, Russ Reister, Wayne Colquitt and Peter Wright. Other stalwarts on the Blue squad during the long season included Brooks Sitterley, Joe Harris and the aforementioned Bomber Bill Stegath. It was definitely a team effort, but individual honors also were achieved by Herbert and Reister, who finished first and third league-wide in winning percentage. Lest we forget, our Club has another bowling team, Rotary "Gold," captained by Bob Dascola and regularly including Dan Romanchik, Paul Glendon, Chuck Olson, Dave Shtulman, Jack Walker and Stegath. (President Lou Callaway was a member of the Gold team in previous seasons, but took a sabbatical during his club presidential year.) Less consistent than their Blue brethren, the Gold squad nevertheless had just as much fun (most of the time) and achieved respectability, if not glory, by finishing eighth (out of 19) in the second-half league standings.