Duckpin

William Ford, a retired industrial inspector and avid duckpin bowler, died of prostate cancer Sept. 23 at Gilchrist Center for Hospice Care. The Perry Hall resident was 84. Mr. Ford was born in Virginia and came to Baltimore with his family as an infant. He was a 1939 graduate of Polytechnic Institute, and during World War II served with an Army infantry unit in the Pacific theater. From 1946 to 1953, he was an inspector at the old Glenn L. Martin Co. plant in Middle River. He was a Koppers Co. inspector for 17 years, and then worked for Environmental Elements from 1970 until retiring in 1985.

Thomas W. Cole III, the former host of the popular WBAL-TV show Duckpins for Dollars who later sold real estate, died of cancer Thursday at Brightwood Center in Lutherville. The Towson resident was 75. Born in Baltimore and raised in Windsor Hills, he was a 1947 Loyola High School graduate and earned a business degree from Loyola College. He served in the Army in Korea before attending the University of Baltimore Law School. In the 1950s, Mr. Cole went into management training for Sealtest Dairies on Loch Raven Road.

When Mike Gibbons was looking to steal ideas for his new venue, Sports Legends at Camden Yards, he didn't visit only museums that celebrated athletics. Sure, he went to the National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, N.Y., the basketball hall in Springfield, Mass., and the Kentucky Derby museum at Churchill Downs in Louisville. But he also drove down the Baltimore-Washington Parkway to study the Holocaust and Spy museums in Washington. He went to a number of Civil War museums. "Our goal is that we are trying to build America's top sports museum," Gibbons said, which meant finding ways to try to set it apart.

Maxine Loretta Boyd, a champion duckpin bowler and church elder, died in her sleep Saturday at her Baltimore home. She was 73. Born and raised in Darlington, S.C., she moved to Baltimore in 1945 while she was in the ninth grade. The Frederick Douglass High School graduate earned a degree from the Maryland Institute College of Art, where she studied fashion design. The former Maxine Loretta Williams married Aaron Boyd Jr. in 1953. They celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary last year by renewing their vows.

Ruth Zentz, a 1940s champion duckpin bowler who went on to direct city girls' and women's amateur sports programs, died of congestive heart failure Aug. 4 at St. Agnes HealthCare. The Catonsville resident was 93. Miss Zentz won top women's honors in the 1944 Evening Sun tournament and was ranked among the top 10 female bowlers for the next decade. In 1951, she became the first Maryland woman to score above 200 in a recorded competition. Her 209 game set a women's national duckpin record.

Elsie M. Supik, a homemaker and duckpin bowler, died Saturday of complications from pneumonia and congestive heart failure at Oak Crest Village in Parkville, where she had lived for the past three years. The former Fallston resident was 91. Born Elsie Madeline Svec in Baltimore and raised on North Port Street, she attended St. Wenceslaus Parochial School and Eastern High School. She took night classes in fashion design at the Maryland Institute College of Art and studied piano. She worked at Goetze's Candy Co. and in East Baltimore tailoring shops before her marriage to Edward A. Supik Sr. in 1934.

From Highlandtown to Art Museum Drive, Baltimore's non-theatrical movie venues come alive with singular events this weekend, starting with a unique chance to sample the cream of recent African moviemaking. The Baltimore Museum of Art holds "The New York African Film Festival Traveling Series," two programs unspooling from 2 p.m. to 6 p.m. Today's slate includes Si-Gueriki: The Queen Mother, the story of a Benin filmmaker who discovers that his mother has been made the monarch of his village; Alex's Wedding; a Cameroon-set drama of polygamy; Me and My White Pal, the surprising chronicle of a Burkina Faso student in France who stumbles onto a drug stash; and, from South Africa, A Drink in the Passage, about the controversy that erupted in 1960 when an African sculptor took a prize in an art contest restricted to whites.

Baltimore has well-known sports mascots and decades-old marvels of culture and kitsch: Orioles and Ravens. Hons and Hairspray. But the port town is home to another, less celebrated, phenomenon: duckpin bowling. Charm City, after all, is where the sport began. It was in the early 1900s, at the old Diamond bowling alley on Howard Street, that the duckpin game began. Today, Baltimore players have their own association, the Baltimore Duckpin Bowlers Association, and the sport even has a national regulatory congress.

Bernard A. Heath, a retired welder and duckpin bowler, died of multiple organ failure Thursday at Franklin Square Hospital Center. He was 82 and lived in Middle River. Mr. Heath was born in Baltimore and raised in Highlandtown. He left school early to help support his family. He worked as a cabdriver and at Rheem Manufacturing Co., makers of water heaters, until becoming a welder in 1965. As a member of International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 24, he worked on numerous construction projects, including the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant in Pennsylvania, the Carroll Island power plant and RFK Stadium in Washington.

Walter S. "Dutch" Stahler, the intrepid duckpin bowler who kept the balls rolling and pins flying for nearly 80 years, died Sunday of pneumonia at Greater Baltimore Medical Center. He was 96. The longtime resident of Fairfield Avenue in Mount Washington picked up his first duckpin ball in the mid-1920s and continued enjoying the sport until rolling his last game at Parkville Bowling Lanes last month. A member of Parkville Bowling Lanes' Senior League, Mr. Stahler was 91 when he earned a certificate in 1997 for having three strikes in a single 158- point game.