Music Was a Prelude to Bowling

Those many years playing violin and conducting orchestras have certainly paid off for H. Rosalind Brown, one of the premiere lawn bowlers in Orange County.

“You keep your arms going all the time when you conduct and when you play the violin,” said the trim Mission Viejo mother of five and president of the 150-member Laguna Beach Lawn Bowling Club. “You use the same muscles when you bowl.”

She is one of five named to the American Women Lawn Bowling Assn. team that will compete in the prestigious Pacific Bowls Championship tournament in Hong Kong on Oct. 26.

The tournament will last two weeks.

“One of my kids just told me, ‘Mom, you’re not supposed to be the jock in the family,” said Brown, 70, who last year won the national open singles championship. “I thought that was cute.”

She contends that part of her ability in lawn bowling is linked to music, as both require good coordination.

“It’s like your talent in music,” she said. “You just seem to have a touch.”

Brown has had that musical touch since she was 4, when her parents started her on the violin.

She became the first woman orchestra and band director at her high school in Des Moines and later earned her music degree at the University of Nebraska.

Brown became a “music schoolmarm,” as she describes herself, teaching instrumental music in schools and summer camps before joining the American Red Cross and providing entertainment to troops during World War II from a base in Cairo.

“That was the most interesting areas of work I have ever experienced,” she said.

She started bowling 11 years ago.

“When I was a novice, I played in the U.S. Championships against people playing the game for 20 years. I felt I had something, and my teacher said I was a natural,” she said.

Spurred on by that accolade, Brown started competing in big tournaments.

“I felt I was on a circuit and started to get a professional feel for the game,” she said. “Before, it was a social feeling. Now I take it very seriously and found that when you win a big tournament it becomes more exciting.”

With all recognition as a top player, she gave up golf, her earlier favorite athletic endeavor.

“Since I started lawn bowling I haven’t had a club in my hand,” she said. “I’m hooked on this sport,” noting that one of her aims is to interest other men and women in lawn bowling, especially younger ones.

While lawn bowling seems to attract older people, she said, “it should be attracting younger players and it could peak now with spectator interest and with some media attention. The timing is right.”

She is referring to the U.S. Open which will be held in October on the greens of nine lawn bowling clubs in Orange County, including the one in Laguna Beach.

“It’s going to be big time for Orange County,” said Brown, who praised the two greens at the Laguna Beach club. “We have the best greens in the United States.”