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ALICE GILKEY
One of the nation's top-ranking female bowlers (average score: 190), Alice Gilkey captained Cincinnati's team that won last season's Women's International Bowling Championship. A wife and the mother of two, she somehow manages to compete each week in three separate bowling leagues—one of which she organized herself. "It's just a little six-team league," she says. "I had to keep it small because all the parties are held in my basement."
But such ladylike dedication was not enough for Alice. Last summer, with two male partners, she decided to enter Cincinnati's Del Fair Three-Man Classic as the only woman among the best of the city's bowlers. The result? Her team finished a creditable third, and at one point Alice herself led the league with a three-game high of 624.
Housewife Gilkey is cheered on at tournaments by her husband, a Cincinnati contractor, and their children Maura, 5, and Jan, 3. But family rooting can put her on the spot. At one three-game match daughter Maura declared confidently over the P.A. system: "Mama's gonna bowl 600 tonight." Happily, Mama did.
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