Professional bowler Joe Lipan of Bend is gearing up to reopen La Pine’s only bowling alley. He purchased the former Shandy’s and has begun refurbishing it.
“We’ve painted the bar area,” said Lipan. “We have fixed the holes in the wall. The biggest thing we’ve done is the (ball return and scoring) machines. It’s taken a lot of time to get those up and running. They’re just like old, old cars — machines that they’re not running. There’s a lot of parts that need a lot of a lot of fixing.”
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Some machines are out of order while others are just out of date.
“You still have to write your own score down,” Lipan said about the current scoring machines. “So it’s nostalgic. The lights. And then you put the scoring in there and then you just keep score yourself. We’re going to get a little modern and do some scoring here and update it so it will keep the score for you. But kind of do like the old school look.”
Lipan says he became a professional bowler at 22, but his career has taken off in the last five years.
“I won ten OBA titles, ten Southern Oregon titles,” he said. “I got about 25 to 30 titles to my name. I just this year became a PBA champion. I won the member / non-member doubles with Jake Klemsen and I became a PBA champion, which was a big step. I’ve been working for that for a long time.”
Lipan hopes to have the bowling alley fully open and operational by the end of February or the beginning of March.
“It’s going to be fantastic,” Lipan said. “I think it’s going to be really good for the community. I think it’s going to be good for me. I think it’s going to we’re all going to benefit from having this here.”
The new bowling alley will be called Titles. That’s Lipan’s nickname.
