Ranked first among all sports nationwide, bowling is by far the most popular team sport for adults in Wallowa County. More than 100 bowlers are involved in league play week-in and week-out for over half of every year at Wallowa Valley Lanes in Joseph.

“I’ve been bowling for over 50 years,” said Joyce Tippett, 75, while waiting her turn on the lane during Women’s Trio League play Monday night. Tippett remembers that she got her start in the leagues as a young mother on beautician Fran Miller’s team when the bowling alley was located in the present American Legion Hall and had only four lanes. She later bowled mixed doubles with her husband, Bill, and now is signed up for both women’s leagues, Monday and Wednesday nights. “It’s my life,” said Tippett. “I love it.”

The eight-lane bowling alley came under new ownership in August of 2001 when Portland-area attorney Susan Moffet decided to purchase the recreational facility from Mark and Gwen Thornberg with an eye to eventual retirement. Both she and daughter Victoria Moffet, also an attorney and manager of Wallowa Valley Lanes, get a lot of teasing about being Oregon’s “bowling alley lawyers.” A popular television series about a lawyer who buys a bowling alley, “Ed,” is now in its third season.

“It’s a good change of pace for me,” said Vicki Moffet, a law partner with local attorneys Bill Kirby and Roland Johnson and involved mostly in public defender and family law work. She said Kirby laughed when she told him they were buying the bowling alley, remembering being involved in a 1960s lawsuit, “Brunswick vs. Wallowa County,” which resulted when the sheriff failed to foreclose on the bowling lanes in a payment dispute. “They are huge,” noted Moffet.

Moffet’s fiance,Landon Moore, who grew up in Wallowa County and moved back from Boise, Idaho, about two years ago, is in charge of day-to-day operation and maintenance of the lanes, and there are an additional four employees.

The bowling lanes, which have been located in a building that used to be a garage since the late 1950s or early ’60s, was totally refurbished since the ownership change. Remodeling, building a new kitchen, refinishing the lanes and installing a high tech Steltronic computerized scoring system, a type found in only 10 other bowling alleys in the nation involved an investment of some $200,000. The facility is still a work in progress, said Moffet. The newest changes are new games for the pool/arcade room, which provides supervised, popular recreation for youngsters when they aren’t bowling.

The new computer boards, featuring eye-catching graphics, have impressed visitors from much bigger cities, though Moffet said some of the long-time local bowlers still don’t entirely trust its scoring. One man from Portland called after a visit, wanting Moffet and Moore to establish a similar bowling facility in a building he owned.

While Joseph’s alley is a popular recreational destination for bowlers of all ages and abilities, like the bowling industry as a whole, bowling leagues – in which teams compete against each other – is the meat and potatoes of Wallowa Valley Lanes’ business.

The local alley currently features four leagues, including Sunday night mixed doubles (two couples per team), Monday night women’s trios (only three persons on a team), and Wednesday night men’s league and Thursday ladies’ league (five persons on a team).

Because of the divorce of both couples in one team since last year, and the moving away or losing interest of other couples, there are only four mixed doubles teams currently competing on Sundays, leaving four lanes free. There is also one lane free Monday night, when the smaller teams allow working mothers and others to get home by 9 p.m. Moffet said that if there are bowlers who would like to try to get a team together, it’s not too late.

Both the men’s and ladies’ league nights fill the alley with avid bowlers both Wednesday and Thursday evenings from about 7 p.m. to closing.

Bowling alley hours are Monday and Tuesday, 6-9 p.m.; Wednesday and Thursday, 3-9 p.m.; Friday and Saturday, 1-11 p.m.; and Sunday, 1-9 p.m.

In addition to the 109 individuals currently signed up for regular league play, there are an additional dozen substitutes. Most of the bowlers also belong to the American Bowling Congress or the Womens International Bowling Congress, and many compete at tournaments in the spring.

Bowling lasts from 28 to 30 weeks depending on the league, beginning in September and ending in the spring. Players say the county’s avid bowlers are mostly “competitive but not cutthroat.” The phrase “we’re here just to have fun,” is often heard. At the end of a long season, the team champions receive “pin money” as their reward.

“It’s something fun you can do together,” said Linda Cool, who has been bowling with husband Dan in mixed doubles for over 20 years. For his part, Dan Cool remembers vividly working as a “pin setter” at the old bowling in the American Legion building when he was eight or nine. “I think I made 10c a game,” he recalls. “If we worked enough games, then we would make enough to bowl ourselves.”

Another avid Sunday night bowler, Bob Zacharias, said he’s bowled in the league since about 1969. “I haven’t got any better, but it has kept me young,” he said.