Up Front
Nine-year-old bowls her way across America States of Play
hat started as a whim on a family vacation has quickly blossomed into a national
feel-good story. In April, 9-year-old Natalie Savant of San Antonio asked her parents if she could bring her bowling ball on the family’s spring break driving trip to Nevada and other states. The energetic youngster quickly turned the trip into a quest to bowl in all 48 contiguous states and spread the word about youth bowling. Since April, Savant, who placed first in singles (Division 10) at the 2012 Texas State Youth Championships, has bowled in 29 states. (Her mother, Ginger, works for an airline, making the quest a tad more manageable.) Along the way, the precocious, media-savvy fourth-grader has garnered plenty of press, including a “Wall Street Journal” interview and a recent appearance on “Live! with Kelly and Michael,” the highly-rated syndicated morning television show featuring Kelly Ripa and former football star Michael Strahan, to promote “Learn to Bowl Month.”
A BOWLING SAVANT W
EVERYTHING BOWLING, ALL THE TIME
On the road again . . . Here are the states that Natalie has visited so far on her bowling trek across America.
ARIZONA
CALIFORNIA
DELAWARE
ILLINOIS
INDIANA
IOWA
KANSAS
KENTUCKY
LOUISIANA
MARYLAND
MICHIGAN
MISSISSIPPI
MISSOURI
NEBRASKA
I’ll take Manhattan: Click the above video for a look at 9-year-old Natalie Savant’s re- cent visit with Kelly Ripa and Michael Strahan on the “Live! with Kelly and Michael” syndi- cated morning show. Savant is visiting all 48 contiguous states to promote youth bowling.
NEW YORK Savant keeps her 4,000 Facebook
followers (“Natalie’s Striking Summer”) abreast of her travels with daily posts, and has taped her own interviews with top bowlers along the way. Her Facebook photo album is chock full of
photos with the game’s top players and legends. Not that crossing off all 48 states will
mark the end of her journey. “I want to keep bowling forever,”
Savant has said. TEXAS VIRGINIA WASHINGTON WISCONSIN /////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// ////////////////// NORTH CAROLINA OHIO OKLAHOMA
NEVADA
NEW JERSEY
NEW MEXICO
OREGON
PENNSYLVANIA
SOUTH CAROLINA
TENNESSEE
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