​​​For the entire 16 years that Roy Barnwell was president of the Illinois State Youth bowlers, his wife Shirley accompanied him to every single event on the youth schedule.

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That also was the case when Barnwell was president of the Peoria bowling association.

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The couple celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary in February of 2015, about a year and a half before Shirley’s passing in July of 2016.

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Shirley will be joining her husband again on Saturday night, in a way, when she is posthumously inducted into the Illinois State USBC Association Hall of Fame in the In Memoriam division.

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The Hall of Fame ceremony will take place on Saturday in Lisle during the Illinois State USBC Annual Meeting. Other inductees will be Helen Tomczuk of Evergreen Park and David Barker of Springfield as Outstanding Bowlers, and Kathy Schofield of Elgin and Bill Duff of Des Plaines for Meritorious Service.

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“I was shocked when they called me to tell me they were putting her in,” said Roy Barnwell, who also is a member of the state association’s Hall of Fame. “We hadn’t put in a resume for her at all.”

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That was done by Patti Mauerman, who is a member of both the Peoria River City USBC Association and the Illinois state bowling association boards.

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“In the 16 years I was president of the youth, Shirley didn’t miss one squad for the kids,” Roy said. “We had three squads on each day, and she didn’t miss any of those squads.”

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Shirley played a key role in making sure the youth bowlers in the state were taken care of financially.

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“When I was president of the youth, we had a board meeting and were thinking about putting a quarter dues on the kids,” Roy said. “Illinois was the only state that didn’t put any dues on the kids.

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“The bowling proprietors said no, and that we were just going to have to tighten our belts.”

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At the time, there were no major fundraising efforts going on to help the youth bowlers. So Roy Barnwell solved that by getting his wife and a friend involved.

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“I assigned Shirley and Ceci Bylls as co-chairmen of fundraising,” he said. “The first year, they raised over $25,000. Over the years they got to know Parker Bohn’s wife and mom by name because they’d do all of these charitable things.”

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Shirley and Bylls ran the souvenir table for the state team tournament and the Pepsi Youth Bowling Championships and never missed a squad in 10 years.

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When they retired, there was more than $50,000 in the account, which went back to the youth through scholarships.

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Shirley’s contributions to bowling through her fundraising efforts, however, did not spill onto the lanes.

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“Shirley was never a strong bowler,” Roy said. “But she and I won the Diamond Medal in Bloomington at Circle Lanes once. That might have been where she had her highest series.”

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Shirley also was a member of the City Mixed Couples Tournament one year, bowling with her daughter Barbi McCane, her grandson Tommy Barnwell and good friend Ryan Driskill.

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But her main contributions focused mainly on the youth.

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As a certified youth coach and a registered USBC volunteer, Shirley coached youth in several area bowling centers for more than 40 years.

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At one point, she had the largest one-day junior program in the area, using all 40 lanes at Town & Country. She also made sure there was a coach on each pair of lanes during youth leagues.

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“When we were at Town & Country, we had school teachers who worked at Manual, Woodruff, Peoria High and Richwoods as coaches,” Roy said. “They recruited a lot of our bowlers, and that’s how we got our kids.”

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Shirley also started an adult/youth league and took her grandson Tommy and some of the other top youth bowlers in the area (Travis Anderson and Ryan Driskill) to bowl in the Iowa Youth Tour events a couple of times a month.

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And when the Midwest Women’s Bowling Tournament started a few years ago, Shirley started putting together teams to travel and bowl in the event.

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“We started with four teams, and we’re now at 18 teams,” Roy said. “She got that started for the Bowling Barnwells.”

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Even after Shirley’s death in 2016, the Bowling Barnwells squad has continued bowling in the event, and there is even a waiting list to join the group.

 

A few of them will be in attendance along with many of Barnwell’s family members on Saturday night when Shirley will be receiving some well-deserved recognition for all of her contributions to Illinois bowlers.