Illinois' Mauerman tabbed as 2024 USBC Youth Volunteer of the Year
March 28, 2024
ARLINGTON, Texas - Patti Mauerman, of Tremont, Illinois, who has spent more than 25 years as a volunteer in bowling at various levels of the sport with the majority of those years coming in service to bowling's youth, has been selected as the 2024 United States Bowling Congress Youth Volunteer of the Year by the International Bowling Campus Youth Committee.
The award recognizes an adult volunteer who has displayed outstanding efforts to foster, organize and promote certified youth bowling programs at the local, state and/or national level. The IBC Youth Committee selects the national award winner from submitted applications.
Being named this year's award recipient produced a variety of feelings for Mauerman, all of them good of course.
"When I got the call notifying me that I won, I just felt so warm inside and just excited and overwhelmed," Mauerman said. "It was such a nice feeling to even be considered for this award and to have someone put me up for it."
Mauerman’s volunteer service in the sport at the local level started around 1998, and she was also volunteering at the state level by 2000.
In 2005, Mauerman founded the Illinois State Scholarship Tour (ISST) and also created and coordinated Junior Gold qualifiers in her area. As Mauerman tells it, her extensive volunteer work in the sport of bowling, and for youth bowlers in particular, started innocently enough.
“Getting into the volunteer part, I started my son (Kyle) in a ‘milk-and-cookies’ league when he was 2,” Mauerman said. “As he got older, he progressed to the point where he wanted to be in more competitive events to be able to qualify for tournaments like Junior Gold. There weren’t a lot of those events in our area, so I started some so that Kyle, his friends and, later, his sister (Laynee) would have an opportunity to qualify for things like Junior Gold.”
The creation of the ISST by Mauerman has made a lasting and extraordinary impact on its youth bowlers. Recognized as one of the largest youth tours in the country, it is estimated the ISST has bestowed more than $750,000 in scholarship money to youth bowlers. In addition to spawning several successful collegiate careers, alumni of the ISST also have gone on to become members of Junior Team and Team USA. Naturally, the ISST is near and dear to Mauerman’s heart, but it’s another event that is “related” to the ISST that she also enjoys.
“The tour is the thing that I enjoy the most,” Mauerman said. “But, at the end of the tour, we now have what’s called the ‘Michigan Cup,’ and we have an Illinois team where we take our top 10 boys and top 10 girls from the tour, and they qualify for this event. We then bowl against teams from Indiana, Michigan and Wisconsin. We’ve been successful at this event, and our kids love to make it onto the Illinois team, and they love going to that tournament. It’s just fun watching them come together for that, and it’s a really enjoyable weekend for me.”
In addition to her youth volunteer work with the ISST and at the local and state level, Mauerman has been the Zone 7 Tournament Director for the Pepsi Championships for nearly 20 years and has volunteered at Junior Gold for the last several years. Her volunteer work at that event has also made a lasting impression on her.
“It’s really a joy to watch these kids live out their dream at that event,” Mauerman said. “Also, I get to see and reconnect with some of the kids that came up through my program because they’re now helping or coaching at Junior Gold, so it’s like a family reunion type of deal.”
Mauerman works full-time and is approaching retirement with the U.S. Postal Service. As noted, her son Kyle and daughter Laynee were Mauerman’s original motivation to be involved in youth bowling, and both were competitive enough to qualify for Junior Gold. Years later, with both Kyle and Laynee now in their 30s, Mauerman still possesses a love for the sport that keeps her spirit of volunteerism going strong.
“I continue to do this because it gives me such a great sense of joy, and all of these people have become my bowling family,” Mauerman said. “I’ve loved watching these kids grow up through the ranks, and now some of them are older and have gotten married, and now their kids are coming to bowl my tournaments. So, it’s been like this whole cycle, and I just feel very honored to have been a part of it, and I can’t give it up. Besides, I have grandkids (Grace and Maddie) that are now bowling, so I have to stick around for them.”
Mauerman’s volunteer work certainly hasn’t gone unnoticed as she has twice been named Illinois State Outstanding Youth Volunteer and is also a member of both the Peoria River City USBC Hall of Fame and the Illinois State USBC Hall of Fame for Meritorious Service.
Mauerman will be recognized as USBC's Youth Volunteer of the Year in April during the 2024 USBC Convention at South Point Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas.
This year's award ceremony, which includes a variety of awards for youth and adult bowlers, will take place during the 2024 USBC Annual Meeting on April 24 and 25. The meeting will be broadcast live at BowlTV.com.
For a list of USBC Youth Volunteer of the Year past winners, click here.
Learn more about awards for adult youth leaders and scholarship opportunities for youth bowlers at BOWL.com/ScholarshipsAwards.