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Bowled over
Sun Villa Lanes to close, leaving people with memories, concerns BY NAT LEVY Bellevue Reporter
day and Joshua giggles and brushes the feathers away. He now knows that new textures can be fun. For his mother, Liz Cornejo, it’s a testament to early intervention. Her oldest son also has autism, but he wasn’t diagnosed until he was too old for Kindering’s program, which is birth to age 3. Sitting on a sofa in Kindering’s family room, she thinks of the years lost. Had she only known the signs. Had she only known there was help. Had she only known there was Kindering. The Bellevue organization has been
From 5-year-old kids, to a 97-year-old man, Sun Villa Lanes has been the go-to spot for bowlers in Bellevue for decades, but the Eastgate alley is in its final frame. The facility will close at the end of May, leaving hundreds of bowlers, specifically league players, looking outside of the city limits for other options. “For the seniors, (bowling) is the highlight of the week,” said C.J. Harms, president of a Monday afternoon league that has nearly 100 bowlers. The bowlers, along with employees at Sun Villa, found out about the closure in a meeting last week. Harms and others said the room was filled with teary eyes and solemn faces. Rumors abound on social media that the building would be demolished to build a parking garage for Michael’s Toyota, the alley’s southern neighbor. That isn’t the case, according to representatives of Skymatt LLC, the owner of the property for both the lanes and the car dealership. AMF, which operates the facility, planned to close the alley for some time, the property owners said. Representatives from AMF did not return calls requesting comment by the Reporter’s deadline, and management at Sun Villa declined to speak about the situation. An afternoon of bowling is considered one of the best forms of exercise and social gathering for senior players and many of the bowlers have been playing together for as long as 30 years. Harm has been the president of the league for 20 years. The nearest bowling alley to Sun Villa is Lucky Strike Lanes in Downtown Bellevue. That facility is smaller and is part of an upscale entertainment center at Lincoln Square. Elsewhere, there are bowling alleys in Kirkland and Tukwila, with a few in South Seattle. The impending closure of Sun Villa has become a sentimental issue for some league players. Don Erickson, a retired Boeing employee, said he taught his daughter to bowl at Sun Villa. She took home so many bowling trophies Erickson had to install new shelves all over the house to hold them. His best personal memory was a three-game stretch where he came one pin shy of topping the 600 mark, a
SEE KINDERING, 14
SEE BOWLING, 6
Joshua Santes, who was diagnosed with autism, peeks out a play castle at Kindering in Bellevue. The center is celebrating its 50th year.
CELESTE
GRACEY, Issaquah & Sammamish Reporter
Learning how to help 50 years ago, many parents were told to institutionalize their children with special needs. Today, Bellevue’s Kindering is there to help BY CELESTE GRACEY Reporter Newspapers
Joshua Santes dives into the playpen like a cannonball, and a splash of feathers spin around his feet. With a toss, his teacher triples the flurry, and an odd new texture surrounds the boy. Seeing Joshua’s smile undone by curiosity, the teacher pinches a feather and tickles the 3-year-old’s cheek. For a child like Joshua, it’s a test.
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Joshua has autism, which often comes with an aversion to unusual textures. They’re as irritating as fingernails on a chalkboard. His first day at the Kindering Center, he wouldn’t go near the sensory pen. A wad of dough lay in the center of its four padded walls, which look like propped up tumbling mats. The boy couldn’t handle even being near the sticky substance. It’s almost two years since his first
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