Pearl Keller

Meritorious Service

Pearl Keller
City: Chappaqua
State: NY
Inducted: 1999

Pearl Keller served on the WIBC Board of Directors from 1984 to 1999. Keller also served as a director of the New York State Women's Bowling Association from 1976 to 1991. She was cofounder of the Women's All-Star Association, an organization for promoting bowling tournaments for highly skilled women bowlers. Keller served as WASA's executive director for 31 years before stepping down from the position in 2002. A longtime bowling editor for Gannett Westchester (N.Y.) Newspapers, Keller in 1973 became one of the first three women admitted to membership in the Bowling Writers Association of America. Keller served the BWAA as a director, sergeant-at-arms and vice president before becoming its first women president in 1992. In 1990 the BWAA awarded Keller its Mort Luby Meritorious Service Award for making distinguished contributions to the coverage of bowling. Keller received over 30 writing awards from the National Women Bowling Writers, which she served as president for six years. The NWBW also awarded Keller its Mary Jannetto Award, for outstanding promotion of local bowling, in 1974; its Jo Ettien Lieber Award, for distinguished service to the game of American tenpins, in 1984; and its Alberta E. Crowe Award, for distinguished service in the communications field, in 1989. In 1997 Keller was inducted into the Women's Professional Bowling Hall of Fame. WIBC recognized her work as an innovator and leader by giving her the WIBC Joyce Deitch Trailblazer Award in 2002.