Posted on Sun, Jun. 01, 2008

Heart transplant recipient competes in bowling tourneys

Euless resident Charline Conger, 70, had never bowled before she had a heart transplant in 1989, but since becoming interested in that sport she has won medals in many contests around the U.S.

Conger moved to Euless in 1995 to live with daughter Tammy Coffey, and every time she passed a Euless bowling alley it made her think of her late husband, who enjoyed bowling.

"One day I just pulled in there and picked out some shoes and started bowling gutter balls," she said. "I kept going back, and finally, some of the old-timers in there decided they would teach me how to bowl."

Conger, who has six children, 26 grandchildren and eight greats, bowls at AMF Showplace Lanes in Euless. Spotting Conger's potential, Showplace sent her to a bowling coach's school.

"I've been a volunteer coach of kids ever since," she said. "I love everybody there and am secretary of three leagues."

One of Conger's biggest fans is Watauga resident Lori Osborne, who met Conger when Conger was coaching her children. "Charline is caring, loving and generous, Osborne said. "She's a dear friend and has all the qualities of a loving mom."

The heart transplant changed her life, Conger said. "When I woke up, it was like the cobwebs had cleared from my head, as my brain wasn't getting enough oxygen," she said.

Conger, who will compete July 11-16 in the U.S. Transplant Games in Pittsburgh, Penn., also bowls in Texas' Lone Star Transplant Games. She loves to participate in transplant games, "because it calls attention to organ donation, and it makes the public aware that we can lead normal lives," she said. "It keeps me going."

Hard heads collide!

Butting heads isn't much fun -- especially with a bull. Just ask Arnold Pitchford, a longtime resident of North Richland Hills before he and Lil, his wife of 58 years and former P.E. teacher at L.D. Bell, moved back to his boyhood farm in Weatherford.

Arnold, who is 81, recently loaded a very stubborn, year-old bull into a trailer on a nearby pasture. The bull, however, had other ideas -- namely freedom.

When Arnold tripped and fell to his knees, the 500-pound bull saw a chance to escape and charged his head right into Arnold's face. Despite a broken nose, messed-up sinuses, a skull fracture, a right shoulder injury and eye-socket damage, Arnold got the bull back into the trailer and delivered him to Mineral Wells. By that time, he was seeing double, but he still took a shower before Lil knew he was home. Only then did he ask her to take him to the nearby Weatherford hospital.

"Both his eyes were swollen shut and getting black, but I still didn't realize how badly he was hurt," she said.

The emergency doc sent him by ambulance to Harris Methodist Fort Worth Hospital, where he was in intensive care several days and had surgery on his nose, one eye and sinuses. Arnold's relatives are known for their keen senses of humor, so they weren't surprised when son Harold Pitchford, who lives on the farm next door, teasingly told his dad that he didn't get as much for the bull as he hoped -- "because the bull had brain damage."

Arnold told his Harris doc that the bull must have knocked a tooth loose, because he had spit one out. But the doc counted and said Arnold had every tooth he was supposed to have. That's when Arnold's family, including daughters, Carol Eberly and Frances Peck of Colleyville and Karen Johnson of Paris, realized the extra one must have come from the bull.