Peter Loomi
			2005
Peter Loomis, 79, a businessman and athlete who owned and operated duckpin and tenpin bowling alleys in Washington, Maryland, Florida, Illinois and Indiana, died of sepsis April 20 at Shady Grove Adventist Hospital in Rockville, after a Feb. 14 auto accident near Hagerstown, Md.
Mr. Loomis, a resident of Ocean Pines, Md., was the former owner of the Mount Rainier Bowling Center, manager of Glenmont Bowl and Fair Lanes bowling centers. He also was an operating partner in a bowling center in Fort Wayne, Ind., and half-owner of a 40-lane center in Miami.
A native Washingtonian and an award-winning athlete in multiple sports, he graduated from Roosevelt High School, where he led the basketball team in scoring. He captured the city's tennis championship for 16-year-olds, won the Boys Club under-17 Ping-Pong championship and was co-captain of a championship soccer team in 1943.
In bowling, he won the national singles title in 1959 and the national mixed doubles in 1961. He won five major tournaments and was ranked in the top 20 bowlers nationwide between 1957 and 1972.
Later in life, Mr. Loomis created in-school bowling programs for high school students.
He enlisted in the Navy during World War II and served on the crew of a ship that made the first landing at Iwo Jima. He graduated from the District's Benjamin Franklin University in 1948. He worked for General Baking Co. for eight years before getting into the bowling alley business.
His alleys in Washington and Maryland were duckpin venues, one of his sons said, although in other places the more common tenpins version predominated. He worked in the Washington area until the early 1970s, when he moved to Chicago and Fort Wayne, before returning to Howard County and later, Ocean Pines. He retired in 1990.
A charter member of Duckpin Professional Bowlers Association, he organized a bowling league for children with disabilities and raised money to send children to summer camps.
He was president of the Metropolitan Washington Bowling Proprietors Association in 1968 and 1969, and first president of the National Duckpin Bowling Proprietors Association.
A member of St. Sophia Greek Orthodox Cathedral in Washington for much of his life, he was for the past seven years a member of St. George Greek Orthodox Church in Ocean City.
Survivors include his wife of 55 years, Christine Loomis of Ocean Pines; three children, William Loomis of Silver Spring, Thomas Peter Loomis of Haymarket and Evelyn Margaret Hobbs of New Market; and seven grandchildren.