A Perfect 300!

By Lauren Radomski (Contact) | The Daily Journal

Published Wednesday, January 23, 2008

Photo by Zak Holtan

Arvid Strande hits his stride at Northern Aire Lanes Tuesday. Strande is the first person to score a perfect 300 game since the bowling season began in August.

Arvid Strande was bowling at Northern Aire Lanes in Fergus Falls Tuesday when alley owner and longtime friend Steve Loeffler jokingly offered a piece of advice.

“Take it easy on the pins,” Loeffler said from a nearby lane, as Strande’s 16-pound ball sent pins flying strike after strike.

Those pins will see little rest if Strande keeps playing like he did Friday, when the 51-year-old Fergus Falls native scored the first perfect bowling game at Northern Aire Lanes since the bowling season began in late August.

From watching Strande on the lanes these days, it’s hard to believe his first foray into bowling was less than triumphant. His first game was as a student at technical school in Alexandria, where his friends’ parents ran the local alley. Strande tried his hand at bowling one night — and flopped.

“That was kind of a humiliating experience, I guess,” Strande said. “My first game was 57. It was pretty bad.”

Yet Strande joined a school bowling league and kept playing after he returned to Fergus Falls. He’s known Loeffler for about 35 years and credits him with developing his game. Now Strande fits in twice-weekly bowling sessions between jobs at Sara Lee and Fergus Tire Center.

On Friday Strande was bowling with a team representing Select Sires, Inc., when he hit the mighty 300 mark. It was teammates Andy Kasten, Mike Donley and Carl Krause, said Strande, who help ease his nerves as he approached the twelfth frame.

“You tend to get a little nervous but it’s fun when you have teammates to loosen you up,” said Strande, who’s bowled 11 strikes about 20 times but has never clinched that 12th strike .

“You don’t want to focus on that,” he said. “You want to bowl like it’s normal.”