BOWLING / SENIORS AT LAKEWOOD : Principal Gets High Marks, but Stus Becomes New Leader

Senior tour veterans Gene Stus and Jim Brenner were looking over their shoulders at school principal Bill Starnes after four rounds of the $100,000 Pacific Cal Bowl PBA Senior Open at Cal Bowl in Lakewood.

Stus, who has won two of his four senior titles at Cal Bowl, won seven of eight matches Tuesday night and jumped from sixth to first with a 224.19 average.

Brenner, whose best finish was a fifth in 1991, ended up 147 pins off the lead.

Starnes, a 50-year-old tour rookie, was a surprising third, 25 pins behind Brenner. “I came out on the senior tour this year because I made a promise to my dying father,” said Starnes of Corvallis, Ore. “My father was in the bowling business and always was disappointed that I didn’t become a professional bowler when I was young. So I promised him before he died in 1991 that I would get in shape and give the tour a try when I turned 50.”

Starnes joined the Professional Bowlers Assn. senior tour July 2 in Montreal, where he finished 50th. Then came a 12th-place finish in Jackson, Mich., 22nd in Denver and 51st in Las Vegas, Nev.--good for $4,185 in total prize money.

Starnes had been planning on missing the cut and returning to work at Cheldelin Middle School. Instead, he will be stay for Thursday’s finals and the $18,000 check that goes to the winner.