ORLANDO, Florida — The $25,000 Daroll and Dolores Frewing Scholarship for 2023 was awarded to Aaliyah Friend during a special ceremony at the Bowling Proprietors’ Association of America’s International Bowl Expo at Orlando’s Rosen Centre Hotel.

The scholarship is administrated by a special committee with the cooperation of the International Bowling Museum and Hall Fame, which perpetuates the history of the sport of bowling.

Growing up, Aaliyah Friend has had more than her share of twists and turns to navigate. On countless occasions, she could have chosen the wrong road — one that could have been destructive both to herself and family. But each time a potentially harmful path came into view, Friend opted for an alley — specifically, the bowling alley in Winston-Salem, N.C., that is owned and operated by her grandfather, Tracy Golding, and her mother, Tabitha Golding.

Northside Lanes was the first bowling center in Winston-Salem to be desegregated, demonstrating that white and Black people not only could coexist, but forge lifetime friendships. As Tracy Golding, who purchased the center with a partner in 2006, proudly describes Northside: “We’re a huge community partner and pillar.” It’s why the Golding family was determined to keep the center alive despite the business challenges presented by the COVID-19 pandemic. And it’s where Aaliyah Friend grew up.

Aaliyah (pronounced uh-lee-uh) has a father, but he struggled with making difficult decisions and being there as a dad. Sometimes just getting to see him could be a challenge. But Aaliyah has seldom dwelled on that fact and calls upon a bowling analogy to describe her lot: “At many times, my life has been like stuffing an 8-pin. You leave them, then you go pick them up.”

So it was up to her mother, grandparents, other family members and an extended family of friends to raise Aaliyah and provide as “normal” an upbringing as possible for a mixed-race child without an engaged father. From the beginning, Tabitha was determined that Aaliyah would not only avoid those aforementioned wrong paths, but also rise above her situation and be everything she could be in life. And Aaliyah’s determination to succeed and desire to help others did not go unnoticed outside the family.

“Aaliyah is the kind of student that reminds me why I love to teach,” wrote Brooke Stone in a letter of recommendation. “She brings energy to the classroom that is contagious and invigorates the students around her... She brings fresh, innovative ideas to the classroom and inspires her peers to work harder and dig deeper.”

After carefully reviewing all the applications and essays with any potentially identifying information redacted, a committee selected Aaliyah for the 2023 honor. She follows in the footsteps of Andrew Amore (2020), Avery Schenk (2021) and Emma McCrary (2022).

In her acceptance speech, Aaliyah thanked her mother (who was in attendance) and the rest of her family for their support, and especially the Frewings for their generosity.

That generosity came back into focus not long after Bowl Expo when the Frewings made an independent decision to also pay off the remaining student loan debt of Tabitha Golding. As Daroll Frewing put it, “We had the opportunity to make another deserving person very happy, so why not?”

A special cover story on Aaliyah Friend will appear in the August issue of Bowling Center Management magazine.