World War II veteran, league bowler celebrates 102nd birthday

COEUR d'ALENE — John Priest was born in the midst of the Prohibition Era, before the Great Depression and about five years after the end of the first World War.

He celebrated his 102nd birthday Sunday and continues to enjoy fishing, bowling and golf. He doesn't really know the secret to longevity, but he has a theory.

“A lot of people ask me that, and I just tell them, ‘You just keep moving,’” he said with a grin. “I don’t know what it is.

"I try to stay active, even now. That’s why I’m bowling," he said.

Priest, of Coeur d'Alene, has been a part of the Monday Senior Mixed Singles League at Sunset Bowling Center for more than 20 years. He enjoyed cake with friends and colleagues Monday morning as bowling balls rolled down the lanes and crashed into pins. 

"He’s such a cool guy," Monday Senior league secretary Char Smith said.

“He’ll come in and I’ll say, ‘How are you this morning John?’ and he’ll say, ‘Well I’m pretty good for today,’” she said. “He’s always pleasant, always has a good attitude. Just a cool guy. How do you describe a cool guy? There’s a million things that you could say about him.”

Smith said she and other bowlers look up to Priest for his stamina and dedication to getting out and about.

"I look forward to him coming in every Monday morning and just saying hi," she said. "We all just really look forward to seeing him every Monday. He’s loved by everybody.”

Priest was raised in Georgia. At age 16, he went to into the Civilian Conservation Corps, a New Deal program of President Franklin D. Roosevelt that worked to counter the effects of the Depression by providing training and work opportunities for young men. They fought forest fires and planted trees, built campgrounds, worked on erosion control and more. To this day Americans still benefit from this work.

Priest's experience in the CCC in Utah changed his life in more ways than one.

“That’s where I met my wife, Maureen,” he said. 

She was just 17 when they met. They wrote each other for several years when Priest served in the Army, fighting in the European Theater in World War II.

“I was in five major campaigns over there,” John said. “I was in the artillery.”

He and Maureen married Feb. 21, 1946, once he returned stateside. They enjoyed nearly 70 years of marriage and countless bowling sessions before her death in 2015.

Together, they had three girls — Pam Butler, who lives with John; Kathy Hornung and Heidi Priest — and eventually welcomed five grandchildren and six great-grands.

At the bowling alley Monday, Pam and Heidi discussed their father's many accomplishments, one of which was working for Hughes Aircraft Company, founded by aviator, engineer and filmmaker Howard Hughes.

“My dad’s writing and drawing, it was so precise,” Heidi said. “And he never graduated from high school. I think he made it through the eighth grade and then he became an engineer for Hughes Aircraft.”

Long before that, their father lived a tough life growing up in the Depression-era South.

"He was basically an orphan when he was little," Pam said. "He’d move from different places. He worked for his room and board from the time he was really little. They did everything on the farm.

"They had a mule and they would take the corn, put it in big bags and he would put it over the mule and ride it to wherever they’d grind it," she said. "That was one of the jobs that he did.”  

In the 1960s, when John, Maureen and their girls lived in Anaheim, John would recover piano keys to make extra money.

"He would strip off the old ivories and the blacks and replace them," Heidi said. "It was by hand. You’d press the key on there. I remember, I used to help him wrap them up in newspaper to deliver them back. He’d file the edges by hand. I’m sure it’s all computerized now.” 

“I even cleaned the sides with a brush,” Pam added. 

John said he has his good and bad days.

“I have neuropathy, and that bothers me a lot, you know, my balance," he said.

He said he enjoys the communication aspect of the senior bowling league.

"You get to talk to people," he said.

Cherie Borgaro, events coordinator for Sunset Bowling Center, has known John through bowling for several years. She said it's awesome he still bowls at 102.

"It just proves to everybody that you can do it," she said.

    John Priest, 102, puts his arms around daughters Heidi Priest, left, and Pam Butler during Monday Senior Mixed Singles League at Sunset Bowling Center, where friends and bowling colleagues celebrated John's recent birthday.
  

    John Priest, who just celebrated his 102nd birthday, throws a ball down the lane Monday at Sunset Bowling Center. Priest has played on the Monday Senior Mixed Singles League for more than 20 years.