The Cleveland Kegler, March 27, 1972

Sprightly Pin Spiller

By Sam Levine

A sprightly octogenarian with a keen sense of humor, who will celebrate his 82nd birthday next May 25, bowls regularly in two leagues each week and wouldn’t consider missing his tenpin nights out.

“I enjoy bowling,” says Steve Rebeck, “it’s a lot of fun and it’s my only recreation  I look forward to knocking down the pins.”

A sculptor, whose name appears in “Who’s Who In Art,” Rebeck competes in the Veterans of Foreign Wars circuit at Play-Mor Lanes and in a mixed couples wheel at 20th Century Lanes.  He has a 124 average in the former loop, a 130 mark in the latter.

“I bowled the highest game of my life in the VFW League last season,” he reveals, “it was a big 245.  I had a funny feeling that night.  I held the ball just right and I couldn’t do anything wrong.

“Everyone looked at me and kept saying, ‘That guy must be a champion.’”

A bowler for more than 40 years, and a charter member of the 27-year old VFW group, Steve’s all-time best series is 602.  His highest average was 155.

“I’m having a little trouble with my bowling these days,” he confides, “my wrist twists too much and sometimes I can’t throw the ball where I want to.  Then once in a while I get a hot streak, like one night this season at Play-Mor when I rolled a 224 game.

One of Cleveland’s most noted sculptors, Rebeck created a World War I monument for the city of Alliance, O., and designed a statue for the top of the Masonic Building in St. Louis.  The Alliance memorial, in bronze, is nine feet high with three figures, a Spanish American War soldier, Abraham Lincoln and a World War I doughboy.  The Masonic shrine consists of two sphinx, back-to-back, 12 feet high and 20 feet long.

A graduate of Cleveland School of Art in 1912, Rebeck studied briefly in New York City, then returned to Cleveland where he opened a shop at 2426 St. Clair Avenue, where he still produces tablets and medallions on order.
“I think I’ve made enough art objects to fill the Public Auditorium,” laughs the five foot, three inch, 160-pound artist, a widower, who has three married sons and ten grandchildren.

A corporal with the 97th Aviation Air Corps in the first World War, Steve recalls that he was a wrester in his youth.
“I was pretty good, too,” he says, we would wrestle in different halls around Cleveland and most of the time I beat the other fellow.  All I got out of it was a little watch and a couple of dollars.
“I liked to wrestle.  It developed both my body and

(Continued on Page 10)

NOTE:  I only have the first page of this article.  I have looked in vain for the second page.  If anyone has any a copy or a lead as to where I might obtain the rest of the article, please contact me.