ARLINGTON, Texas – Toni Maddux of Port Orange, Florida, Brian Nunning of St. Joseph, Michigan, and Randy Hicks, Deborah Holland and Brandon Ledbetter of Southern Lanes in Douglasville, Georgia, were selected by the United States Bowling Congress Board of Directors to receive USBC National Recognition Awards.

Maddux is this year’s recipient of the Helen Baker Award for Outstanding Association Service, Nunning is the Joyce Deitch Unity Award winner and Hicks, Holland and Ledbetter were selected as USBC Proprietor of the Year as co-owners of Southern Lanes.

The annual awards honor outstanding bowling leaders for their contributions to the sport. Selections were made from submitted applications, and the recipients will receive their awards at the 2026 USBC Convention in Reno, Nevada.

The USBC Helen Baker Award for Outstanding Association Service is named in honor of the fifth president of the Women’s International Bowling Congress (WIBC) and recognizes an outstanding bowling leader who has made invaluable contributions to local and state associations as an innovator, creator and mentor of adult programs.

Maddux, 75, has been a dedicated member, devoted volunteer and valuable contributor on the league, local and state level in Florida for more than 58 years. Her service time in the sport started at a young age.

“I started as a youth league secretary when I was a teenager, and then I got involved in the local association and was on that board for more than 30 years,” Maddux said. “I was only 18 when I first joined our local board, and I was 35 when I joined the state board.”

On the league level, Maddux has filled just about every role, including time spent as secretary, treasurer, vice president and president over the years.

During her time on the local association board (now known as the East Volusia Flagler County USBC), Maddux served on every committee at one time or another, spent 28 years as sergeant at arms and two years as a director.

Her service on the state level is equally impressive, holding a variety of roles as the association transitioned from the Florida Women’s Bowling Association (FWBA) to the Florida State USBC Women's Bowling Association (FSUSBC WBA) to the current Florida State USBC (FSUSBC).

For the FWBA, she was assistant sergeant at arms and then third and second vice president. She served two years as first vice president for the FSUSBC WBA before becoming president for 10 years. For the current FSUSBC, she has served as chairperson for numerous committees, been second vice president and is currently a director.

She was active on the youth side of things as well, serving for a number of years on the East Volusia Flagler County Youth Board and the Florida State Youth Board for 13 years.

Maddux attended every state meeting from 1971 before missing the meeting that was conducted in January of 2025.

“Over the years, I just kind of climbed the ladder,” Maddux said. “From third vice president, to second, to first and then I became president. Now I’m a director at the state level. All I want to do is be out there with the bowlers, work with the bowlers, be around them. It’s so great to be around them when they get their first 200, their first 300, things like that.”

Maddux started bowling in sixth grade and recalled that she scored 44 for her first game. Even so, she was hooked. Although she doesn’t bowl these days, she’s spent the better part of her life participating in leagues and tournaments, including numerous years of participation at the USBC Women’s Championships.

“For those who work with youth in bowling, you never know what kind of impression you’re going to make with these kids,” Maddux said. “I had a coach who left a great impression on me when I was younger, and it led to all these years of my involvement with the sport.

“When I started out as a youngster, I wanted to be a pro bowler,” Maddux continued. “But, when I knew I wasn’t ever going to be a pro, I decided to look into the administrative part of bowling. I’m sure glad I did that.”

Maddux was asked what it meant to her to be named the recipient of this award.
 
“It means so many things to me,” Maddux said. “I actually knew Helen Baker. She was a great lady, and she was a people person like me. I got to know her on a more personal level, which makes this even more special for me.”

After all these years, what keeps Maddux so enthused and involved with the sport of bowling?

“I think it’s important today that we teach bowlers how to adapt and change, and I’ve always wanted to be part of that process,” Maddux said. “I just care about the bowlers. I enjoy people, I enjoy working with people, and I love bowling. I want everyone to have the fun and camaraderie I’ve had over the years.”

In addition to being honored as this year’s USBC Helen Baker Award recipient, Maddux was awarded with a Member Emerita honor in recognition of outstanding service in 2003 by the Daytona Beach Women’s Bowling Association (now the East Volusia Flagler County USBC) and is a 1998 inductee into that association’s Hall of Fame. She also is a member of the Florida State USBC Hall of Fame (2000).

The USBC Joyce Deitch Unity Award is named in honor of the seventh president of the WIBC. It recognizes organizations and individuals who have made important contributions to the sport of bowling by being motivators, visionaries, leaders and/or innovators.

Nunning’s major contributions have been in service to the bowlers of Indiana over the past 35 years since his start with the Greater Evansville USBC in 1991 and then by expanding his bowling service to the state level.

Nunning, 57, has tirelessly volunteered countless hours and traveled numerous miles in giving back to the sport of bowling. His accomplishments have had a huge impact on the bowling industry because of his ability to visualize and develop the future of Indiana bowling for its members.

He started in the sport as a youth, but it wasn’t without difficulty. Nunning was born prematurely, and that had lingering effects throughout his childhood and into his adult years.

“Being born premature, I had trouble growing up with leg problems, muscle problems, lung problems, things like that,” Nunning explained. “I tried to play other sports, but that just didn’t work out. I started bowling around the age of 10, and it was tough, but I was able to do it, and I just fell in love with it.”

Nunning bowled in certified leagues for 30 years (1987-2017) and actively participated in local and state tournaments during the same timeframe. He even logged 25 consecutive years of participation at the national level at the USBC Open Championships. But it’s his work and dedication off the lanes that earned him this honor.

He started working at Franklin Lanes in Evansville, Indiana, in 1984 at the age of 15, handling duties that ranged from “being the mechanic, to putting a roof on the building, to drilling balls and just about everything else.”

“Dave King was the owner of Franklin Lanes and was close with Larry Taylor, who was the local Evansville association president at the time,” Nunning said. “Between the two of them, they basically started grooming me to be more involved on the association side. They saw something in me and knew that it would be a good fit for me. Dave and Larry were very supportive and excellent mentors. They quickly became, and remain, father figures to me and very influential in my life.

“I found a sense of enjoyment in helping others,” Nunning continued. “The more I got involved in the organizational side of things, the more joy I found in that, and then I wanted to help others find joy in it.”

For Nunning, “getting involved” has meant a variety of roles at the league, local and state level in Indiana over the years that fill numerous pages of his bowling resume.

While he was actively bowling in leagues, he also worked as a league secretary or treasurer for seven different leagues from 1987-2013.

At the local level in the Evansville area, Nunning has been association president, served on the board of directors, been a tournament director and tournament manager and chaired numerous committees. He also helped create Evansville’s first bowling website back in 1997.

Moving to the state level, Nunning has been the association manager for the Indiana State USBC since 2018. He has served on the board of directors, has been president and has served stints as first, second and third vice president. He has been a member and/or chairmen of every committee with the state association and has served as a delegate to the USBC Convention.

While his accomplishments at all levels are numerous, a couple of them stand out to Nunning.

For the state association, Nunning provided personal leadership in developing and managing a bracket/side pot operation team.

“We wanted to start brackets at the state tournament, so we looked at software and developing applications for ourselves,” Nunning said. “We tried it one way with some success, but then we decided we needed to form a team that would run this year after year and provide consistency to the process. We formed that team, and now we’ve got that process down to a science. To this day, we’ve got a bracket team that runs brackets across all our tournaments. I’m really proud of that. We started it from scratch, and now it functions well and raises funds, which helps us to operate without state dues at this point in time.”

Nunning also is proud of helping to modernize things through his role as association manager.

“I believe in thinking forward, so we’re now digitizing our world,” Nunning said. “We’re operating in the Google Enterprise environment. Everything is getting integrated, and everything is together. To get younger folks involved, they don’t want to come into a paper environment. They’re digital, so we’re trying to move the association in that direction because that’s how younger people are going to want to work. We’re always trying to get more young people involved and find ways to constantly improve.”

For Nunning, the honor of winning this award is one he stresses that he shares with everyone.

“I never would have expected this (winning the award),” said Nunning. “You never think of things like this, and you’re not doing it for things like this. You do it for the people you work with and because it’s the right thing to do. To get this type of recognition, you feel like it shouldn’t just be for me because it wasn’t just me doing all these things. It was me with a group of great people and great leaders and friends and family and people that have become like family. That was my first thought – that this is great, and I love this and I’m amazed by it and I’m so honored – but how do I make sure that everybody else feels this as well because they deserve it.”

At the end of the day for Nunning, it’s all about the joy and fulfillment he gets out of being involved in the sport he loves.

“It’s really all about the people,” Nunning said. “The board members, our staff members, the bowlers – they’re not just friends; they’re my bowling family, so, to get to do this alongside people you really enjoy being with, it’s a joy.”

In addition to this honor, Nunning is a member of the Evansville (2008) and Indiana State (2017) USBC Halls of Fame.

The USBC Proprietor of the Year Award annually recognizes a bowling center proprietor for outstanding support of USBC local, state and/or national association programs.

Hicks, Holland and Ledbetter purchased Southern Lanes after it had gone through foreclosure with its previous owner. They reopened the center in August of 2018.

Hicks, who serves as the spokesperson for the group, noted it was a bit of a process for the group to gain ownership. The previous owner, who had taken ownership in 2005, approached Hicks in both 2014 and 2016 about buying the center, but the deal just wasn’t working for him.

It was only after the center went into foreclosure that the group decided the time was right to take action.

“We ended up letting the center go into foreclosure, and I had stayed in touch with the bank through that process and let them know I was interested in purchasing the center,” Hicks said. “Deborah had come onboard, which was helpful for me because she had the assets we needed to help secure the loan. Through her, we also got Brandon involved, and we made an offer, and it was accepted. We secured a loan through the Small Business Association, and the three of us became owners of the bowling center.

“I couldn’t have done it by myself,” Hicks continued. “We all agreed that we would take separate roles regarding ownership. I would pretty much be the face of the place and oversee operations. Deborah would handle financials, permits, administration, that type of stuff. Brandon would be in charge of the facility, maintenance, the grounds, those items. We’re all three bowlers, and everybody kind of stays in their own lane, so it’s worked out real well.”

As is normally the case when new ownership takes over, there was plenty of work to be done.

“When we bought it, we agreed that the last thing we wanted was for the people that had bowled here before to walk in and see the same old place,” Hicks said. “We took all the carpet out and put in acrylic floors, which are pretty unique. We put in giant ceiling fans, new heat and air conditioning, new parking lot; we had to do it all. We did have a great scoring system, and the lane beds were in good shape, so in that sense the bones were good.”

After spending the first five years of ownership concentrating on creating a thriving business for the 32-lane center, Hicks and the group went to work transforming the additional space in the center into something truly unique – “The Bowling Factory.”

That 12,500-square-foot space had been built out to be bowling lanes, but the previous owners never did anything with it. The space had functioned as a game room, a bounce house, a boxing ring, just to name a few. Hicks and his group ended up leasing it out for the first five years as they focused on their “main business.”

“Then I started thinking about how I would want to do a training center that would take us to the next level in bowling,” Hicks said. “I wanted six lanes that were centered up in that area with a stadium kind of set-up with a balcony and bleacher seating. We installed three different lane surfaces on those six lanes . . . we have Brunswick Anvilane and Pro Anvilane, and AMF HPL. We have both Specto and Clutch installed as well. If we ever have a pro event, we could have the finals in the Bowling Factory.”

The Bowling Factory, which opened more than two years ago, is starting to catch on as a true training center, and the hope is to one day bring a Gold-level or other high-level coach on board to be part of it. In the interim, the space can be used for VIP events and open bowling.

“We turn the Specto and the Clutch graphics on, and people have a good time in there,” Hicks said. “We’re a full house with leagues five nights a week, so that gives people another place for open play when it’s available.”

And while all the talk to this point has been about the bowling center and its features, it’s really the attitude, philosophy and work ethic of the ownership group that made them recipients of this award.

Southern Lanes is known for giving back: from affordable rates for those on fixed incomes, to sponsorships that keep youth sports thriving, to providing special needs invitation competition for several counties in the area and hosting Special Olympics for the state of Georgia, to hosting field trips for daycares and after-school programs for Douglas and Carroll County Schools, to hosting tournaments on more than 40 weekends a year, the center is truly committed to serving the community.

“We want to cater to the bowlers,” Hicks said. “We want to be known as the bowler’s house, and we want to stick to that. Our philosophy is ‘We’re not trying to make $100 off everyone that walks through the door; we want everybody to come back 100 times.’”

And that philosophy is something that is stressed and shared with all employees.

“I tell everyone that works here that every bowling center has a parking lot, they all have doors, they all have pins, machines, house balls, house shoes, so how are we going to be different?” said Hicks. “And the difference in our bowling center versus everyone else’s is the people. I want everyone that comes here to feel like they’re part of a family.”

So, what does Hicks think of the award being bestowed upon him and his fellow owners?

“We’re just thrilled that little ole Southern Lanes in Douglasville, Georgia, is accepting such a big award,” Hicks said. “I certainly have to thank my partners, Deborah and Brandon, because I couldn’t do it without them. I also want to thank our General Manager, Janean Dover, and her husband Stephen, who is our head mechanic and facilities manager. I trust them completely with this bowling center. They were the only two people that worked here before that we brought with us. I wish I had 20 of each of them. I also want to thank my wife Dusty, who does a ton of work for the center. It’s certainly a group effort.” 

The National Recognition Awards will be presented during the 2026 USBC Convention and Annual Meeting from April 27-30 at the Silver Legacy Resort Casino in Reno, Nevada.

Click here for more information on the National Recognition Awards and to learn about past recipients.

Click here for information about the 2026 USBC Convention.