Members and friends of the Southeast Kansas Humane Society bowled for bow-wows Saturday at the organization’s 10th annual bowl-a-rama.
“We’ve got 24 teams with six on each team,” said Joanne Wenzl, event chairman. “That’s 144 bowlers.”
Lane sponsors paid $200 per lane for two games of bowling, plus free shoe rental, free pizza and soft drinks. There were also ad sponsors who paid $50 to have their business name listed with the event.
“Some of our sponsors have been with us all 10 years,” Wenzl said. “Sometimes the companies will have their employees form a bowling team, and others just have us get bowlers.”
“We’re seeing a lot of the same bowlers, but we’re also getting some new ones,” said Mary Kay Caldwell, Humane Society president.
One very familiar face belonged to Dr. Micky Painter of Town and Country Animal Hospital, who brought his staff in for the evening.
“We’ve been coming here every year they’ve had it,” the Pittsburg veterinarian said. “It’s a great fundraiser for the Humane Society. Everybody gets to come out and have fun for a good cause.”
Trophies will be awarded for the top three bowling scores. For teams that wear company uniforms there will be medals for the classiest uniforms and tackiest uniforms.
“We’re also going to give a spirit medal this year to a team that shows a lot of enthusiasm,” Wenzl said. “We have people watching the lanes to determine the winner of this award.”
She said that funds raised from the bowl-a-rama, which also includes a silent auction of donated items, will be used for two projects.
“We would like to put up a billboard at 20th and the 69 Bypass giving people directions to our animal shelter,” Wenzl said. “There are a lot of people who don’t know how to find us, and they end up at the city’s animal control shelter.”
The second project is to do work on the outside dog pens at the shelter.
“We’d like to put another cement pad in there, and hopefully we’d be able to have more space and fewer dogs in each pen,” Wenzl said.
Caldwell noted that the society is a non-profit organization which depends on donations and fundraisers such as the bowl-a-rama and the annual chili feed to provide services for homeless pets in the area.
