The following information is from the Hall of Fame application: Currently Jean is Laurens County WBA Director, Laurens County JBA Secretary/Treasuerer, 225 Masters Director, SC 600 Club Director and SCWBA Nominating Committee. Previously, Jean served as Laurens County WBA President – 6 years; Vice President – 2 years and Secretary – 3 years. Previous SCWBA Committees: Nominating, Tellers, Legislative and Credentials. Jean has served on all the Laurens County WBA Committees. Jean has earned the following State High Average awards: 1981 – 189 Average, 1983 – 192 Average and 1984 – 193 Average.
The following was reported in the The State, Bowling Scene by Cameron Tankersley, on Wednesday June 15, 1983, Columbia, SC: “Jean Hammond may feel like she’s really lucked into something when she makes her voyage to Caracas, Venezuela, later this summer.
The Laurens denizen was recently invited to compete for the US bowling team August 6-13 in the Pan American Games at Caracas, and she looks at it like those TV sweepstakes cynics who say, “Nobody really wins those things.” “This always happens to somebody else you read about, ” Hammond said. “I didn’t think it would happen to me.”
Hammond earned this trip, though. It’s a wonder she’s surprised. She rolled the high score for a non professional in all-events at the Women’s International Bowling Congress national tournament in St. Louis last June. Hammond’s 1,838 in nine games of singles and doubles was good for a 204.2 average and gave her a fifth-place finish in the field of 60,000.
Last august she represented the US in the Tournament of the Americas at Miami, a competition with 24 nations represented. There she teamed with Rich Wonders of Racine, Wis., to win the mixed doubles competition with a 2,487. She finished with a 187.5 average in 33 games, fifth best in the tourney.
And now it’s the Pan-Am Games, this hemisphere’s Olympics, so Hammond may be pardoned for a slight case of abdominal butterflies. “I know I’ve earned the right,” she said, “but I’ll probably wish I had someone else bowling for me when I get there.”
Hammond and Mary Lou Vining of Inver Grove Heights, Minn., were the two women to qualify for the Pan-Am team. Wonders was one of the men chosen.
Hammond said she might team with Wonders again in Caracas for the doubles competition.
Her performance in the WIBC tournament also earned her a chance to qualify for the World Bowling Championships, also in Caracas, this October. She will make her qualifying attempt in Milwaukee this July. (This ends The State article.)
