Girard residents remember popular bowling alley, hang-out spot

former bowling alley is being demolished

By Sarah Lehr

slehr@vindy.com

GIRARD

One evening in 1997, all 24 lanes at Kay Lanes abruptly shut down, and a voice came over the loudspeaker.

It was Mike Millich, a mechanic at the bowling alley, calling for everyone’s attention. Millich then handed the microphone over to his friend Tom Olesky, who addressed a bowler named Stacy and got down on one knee.

Spoiler alert: She said yes.

Tom had met Stacy two years before at Kay Lanes. He was a part-time bartender there when he noticed her bowling with her mother and grandmother as part of a ladies trio league. Tom asked one of the kids who worked as a pin-chaser to approach Stacy on his behalf.

Today, Tom and Stacy Olesky have three children, one of whom now bowls for Ohio State University.

The Oleskys passed their love of the sport on to their family, although the couple says bowling hasn’t been the same since Kay Lanes shut down in 2011.

Though the Kay Lanes sign still heralds South State Street drivers with “Thank you” and “Good bye,” the building is in the process of being demolished. Its walls are long-gone, but pin-setter machinery, now overgrown with weeds, remains.

Five years after it closed, Girard residents remember the bowling alley, which opened in 1962, with fondness and nostalgia.

Cathy Balko’s first job was in the Kay Lanes snack bar. Like many other former employees, Balko describes the generosity of the business’ owners, Mickey and Darlene Kay.

Many former workers make a point to mention the alley’s legendary Christmas Eve parties for employees, which began in the afternoon and extended until 1 or 2 a.m. The festivities included Christmas bonuses for the workers, who unfailing chipped in for a nice present for the Kays, as well.

Longtime Girard residents paint a picture of Kay Lanes as a family-friendly, multi-generational hub.

“It was just the place to be,” Balko said. She added that she’s hard-pressed to think of a comparable present-day gathering place in Girard.

Balko taught her children and grandchildren to bowl, though she feels wistful about what she perceives as a decline in the sport’s popularity.

“People just have so many options now,” Balko said.

In the United States between 1998 and 2012, the number of bowling centers fell by about 26 percent from 5,400 to 3,976, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

Statistically, Kay Lanes may be just one of many casualties of a shifting industry, but for its patrons, the Girard establishment was in a league of its own.

After Kay Lanes’ last day in business, employees and customers from the alley’s nearly half a century in business gathered one last time for a massive party.

Some of them recalled a time when pins had to be set by hand. Others shared stories of the bowling alley’s legendary patrons – most notably Adam Barta of Girard who made his way into the Guinness Book of World Records for bowling in 2015.

After Kay Lanes closed shop, Tom Olesky snagged a piece of a backboard from the lane where he bowled his first 300 game – well, actually his first 299 game.

“That was a hard night,” Olesky said of the alley’s last hurrah, which lasted well into the evening. “I grew up at that bowling alley.”