By Willie Theis

In a town that never knew the thrill of sending a bowling ball barreling down a lane in the hopes of knocking down 10 pins, something extraordinary happened.

Doug Love gets ready to bowl at the Virgin Valley Casino bowling lanes. (Willie Theis photo)

The Virgin River Casino added a bowling center in 1998 with 24 lanes and it was a game changer.

For serious bowlers, it meant joining a league in their hometown with a chance to compete and have a blast without sacrificing time and energy on the road traveling to a league in either St. George or Las Vegas.

So it’s not surprising leagues are thriving, driven in part by a steady influx of an older demographic who love bowling, along with a growing number of young bowlers using a two-handed delivery.

The majority of the leagues consist of 24 teams with a total of 96 bowlers, and in a typical month, bowlers get to showcase their talents in some 6,900 games.

And as summer turned to fall, bowlers launched the 2023-24 season in September and have been lighting up the scoring monitors with some monster scores, including a trio of 300 games and an 813 series.

The arrival of the bowling center 25 years ago also ushered in the opportunity for other bowling related activities.

One of the most recent took place in May, when women from across Nevada traveled to Mesquite to compete in the 2023 Nevada State Women’s Championship Tournament.

And the most recent took place over two weekends in June when both locals and visitors competed in the Southern Nevada Senior Doubles Tournament.

And one event eagerly anticipated by seasoned bowlers in the community and surrounding area is the Mesquite Senior Games, where the air is filled with friendly competition for medals, and senior athletes celebrate their enduring love of the game.

The bowling center is also a hub of activity where kids and families can gather for open bowling on a weekend, or Friday night under the neon lights for cosmic bowling and celebrate strikes with high-fives and beaming smiles.

Children’s birthdays took on a whole new dimension. It became the coolest place in town for birthday parties where children can cheer as they knock down pins between eating a slice of a birthday cake or pizza while the building is buzzing with palpable excitement and energy.

An office or small business discovered a new way of enhancing bonds between working colleagues could best be achieved amid the relaxed atmosphere of holding a party during the Christmas holidays at the Virgin River bowling Center.

No doubt, with the arrival of the bowling center in 1998, numerous bowlers have also discovered what local bowler Toni Gans did even before moving to Mesquite when she emphatically stated, “I like the competition, but I like the people even more, and some of the bowlers I met when I began bowling in 1975 are still friends today and are like extended family.”