Youth bowling did not come into being until the 1930s, with the first officially recorded competition coming in 1937 when American Bowling Congress Hall of Famer Milt Raymer organized a four-team boys league at Tilden Technical High School in Chicago. Prior to that, youth mainly stepped directly into adult competition. The word of Raymers program quickly spread to other schools and soon the Chicago High School Bowling Club was developed to govern high school bowling activities. Other areas of the country became interested, and Raymer began operating the American High School Bowling Congress from the basement of his home. The program was temporarily discontinued when Raymer entered the military service in 1942, but it was reinstated upon his discharge in 1946. The National Bowling Council, which was organized in 1946, took over sponsorship of Raymers group later that year and renamed it the American Junior Bowling Congress in 1947. It had 8,767 members at that time. Raymer remained its Executive Secretary, keeping the office in Chicago. When Raymer decided to retire in 1961, membership had reached 410,000. Chuck Hall, who had been an AJBC Field Representative, succeeded Raymer. With the growth came operational differences between the NBC organizations. The Bowling Proprietors Association of America did not agree with the AJBC operations and in 1964 there was a split of youth programs. The AJBC continued under the auspices of the ABC and the Womens International Bowling Congress, and moved its office to Milwaukee. The BPAA created its own Youth Bowling Association. After years of discussions between the groups, the Young American Bowling Alliance was created in 1982, combining AJBC and YBA. The proprietors and two membership organizations had equal representation on the 15-member Board of Directors, and Hall continued as Executive Secretary until his retirement in 1985. The vitality of the youth program was at the local level where 35,000 volunteers served as coaches and leaders of more than 350,000 young people in league programs in almost all of the nearly 6,000 bowling centers in the United States, Canada, Puerto Rico and military bases worldwide. In concert with many organizations, including the mens and womens associations, youth bowlers have annually been awarded nearly $3 million in scholarships. The In-School Program brought local proprietors and membership organizations closer together. The program introduced bowling to pre-school through middle school students with educational classroom materials, simulated bowling equipment and instructional videotapes. The AJBC and YABA had only five leaders. Besides Raymer and Hall, Edward Clarkson served from 1986-92, Joseph Wilson from 1992-96 and Jim Zebehazy from 1996 - 2004.
