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It doesn’t take long to read Bill Porterfield’s 1976 story of a Carrollton mailman who becomes briefly famous at a Grand Prairie bowling alley. Larry Bowman is our main character, a worker who goes out with his buddies two nights a week. One of his is low-stakes gambling. The “big night” is spent bowling in a citywide post office league. Channel 8 is Bowling with dollars.
The matchup was simple and strange for the time. Each contestant was paired with a pen pal who watched from home and shared the prize money that the bowler took home. Each bowler has two chances to hit consecutive strikes. The jackpot increased with each failure. Long before he was inducted into the National Sportscasters and Sportswriters Association Hall of Fame, Vern Lundquist was WFAA’s sports director and host of the early game show, which aired Wednesdays at 6:30 p.m.
We know how this goes. Bowman landed his second strike and he won $2,540. This would make him just over $14,000 today. More than a decade ago, when we first covered this story, this was $3,000. But this wonderful little story, published on the back page of the March 1976 issue, is about a journey when local television tried out fun little things and small wins meant big rewards. It’s one of his 50 amazing stories we’re featuring this year to celebrate our 50th anniversary, and you can read it here.
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matt goodman
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Matt Goodman is Online Editorial Director. D Magazine. He writes about a man who was a surgeon who killed someone.
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