'Age is only a number': 95-year-old bowler still rolling at B&B Lanes

Inside B&B Lanes on a Tuesday evening, as bowlers file in for league play, some entrants hear a chorus of greetings when they step through the glass doors. It’s the kind of reception that’ll make you turn in your seat to see who caused it; a sort of alley salute.

Doug Hepner is one of those people.

A 95-year-old retired US Army Command Sgt. Maj. who’s lived in Fayetteville since 1977, Hepner has been spinning pins longer than most of B&B’s patrons have been living.

“At least it gets me out one night a week,” he jokes before warming up with his Rockin’ Oldies teammates.

“I’ve been bowling for years and it’s just something that more or less comes natural. As long as I enjoy it and can do it, I’m going to do it.

“Age is only a number.”

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He walks to lane No. 20 with his daughter, Ellen Hepner Fenton, who’s been bowling with her dad and the rest of the family since she was a kid, shaking hands and exchanging hellos with the regulars.

B&B Lanes Assistant Manage Krislyn Tyler smiles behind the counter.

“Bowling truly is a lifetime sport,” she said. “To see people out here in their 80s and 90s still bowling, it gives you something to look forward to.”

She’s inspired by Hepner’s refusal to let his age keep him from doing things he enjoys.

“I didn’t realize Doug was gonna be 95 this year. He, just a few years ago, did a 5k with me,” she said. “He kept up with me the whole time.”

Hepner’s bowling approach has slowed down over time. His average has dropped. But he still has a sweet, gloveless technique.

Age-related macular degeneration has caused vision loss, and when Hepner leaves pins standing, he can’t see exactly where they are. Fenton tells him the pin locations so that he knows where to throw.

They’re lifelong teammates. On Tuesday nights, they share the lane with Debbie Wagner and Harry Reed, ages 76 and 89, respectively.

“We’re the old people,” Reed said.

Asked about the secret to bowling well in advancing age, he kept the humor: “We’re not good bowlers,” he deadpanned. “We’re just still living.”

Jokes aside, Reed, a retired US Army Sgt. Maj., said he enjoyed the camaraderie of bowling; “just getting out and talking to people,” he said.

Wagner enjoys it, too. She plays league ball three nights a week, on top of a 40-hour work week. “I’m out here to have fun,” she said. “Our whole team is. Of course, we want to win, but we want to have fun.”

The Hepner family found bowling together a constant in the ever-changing lifestyle of the military. One of four children, Fenton was born in Germany and “grew up all over the world,” she said. Her father had been a pin chaser in his hometown of Harrisonburg, Virginia, in the mid-1940s, when people did the jobs pinsetter machines do now. His love of the sport flowed naturally to Ellen, and even though they were often on the move, the family could always find a bowling alley.

“It’s a family sport,” Ellen Fenton said. “Something you can just pick up and go and do.”

As loss has made their family smaller, Hepner and Fenton are still a team, and they’ve found an even larger squad of supporters in their home alley.

“The community of bowlers is very much a family, and they really do love my dad,” Fenton said. “Especially the ladies.”

Doug doesn’t blush. “They’re just friends,” he nods.

“He’s got a lot of nicknames," Fenton said, "Sugar Pops, Sugar Doodles.

“Everybody loves my dad.”

Hepner and his Rockin’ Oldies team are certainly popular and very well-respected by the B&B crowd. But the bond between the 95-year-old bowler and his daughter is especially significant.

“I think I could bowl without Ellen but I wouldn’t enjoy it as much,” Hepner said. “She lets me know where the pins are and I try to hit ‘em.”

So, the team will keep rolling along, an inspiration of positivity and get-going perspective that could serve us all.

“As long as I feel good, I’ll keep it up,” Hepner said. “If you feel like it, do it.”

This article originally appeared on The Fayetteville Observer: 'Age is only a number': 95-year-old bowler still rolling at B&B Lanes