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Ogden • Elsie Fuhriman is getting accustomed to a brand-new bowling ball. It's hot pink with white swirls, and it has a slightly different feel from the ball she was using. She appreciates the ball, which was a gift from her children, but hot pink is not the color she would have chosen — it's eye-catching and she really doesn't like to draw attention to herself.

The Ogden woman did receive a little bit of attention the first day she used the ball, but not because of the bright color. It was because she had just turned 94 years old.

"I hope I'm still bowling at 94," said fellow bowler Tammie Brandley, of Harrisville. "She still has all the spunk of a 50-year-old."

Fuhriman bowls in two leagues, one for women and another for seniors. She also serves as a substitute in another league, so she hits the lanes two or three times a week.

"She just keeps going, like the Energizer Bunny," said Fuhriman's daughter, Dana Austin, of Clinton.

Fuhriman has been bowling so long that she doesn't remember why she started. But she knows it was more than 50 years ago that she joined Ogden's Ben Lomond Belles bowling league.

Her five children also learned to bowl, and a few of them were even on a league together.

"We bowled for quite a few years and then decided not to continue," said Austin. "But mother has."

Fuhriman says she's not a very good bowler anymore, but friends disagree.

"She picks up splits," said Verna Mangum, of Ogden.

And Brandley adds: "She's still competitive, and I think that's great. She out-bowls some of us who are younger."

Fuhriman's average is 123, and she uses a 10-pound ball.

"I used to have a 12-pound ball, then I hurt my back," she said, explaining that she suffered a hairline fracture when she fell while moving a garbage can.

She was out of commission for about six weeks, but it didn't end her league play.

"It happened in the summertime, when you don't bowl," she said.

When leagues resumed in the fall, she was back at Ben Lomond Lanes.

Rolling a ball toward pins keeps Fuhriman, and other seniors, out of a rocking chair.

"It's better to be rollin' than rockin,' " said Fuhriman's teammate, Lynnette Fritz, of North Ogden.

Austin says her mother is still in very good health. Until the past year or so, she wasn't on medication, and she still does a lot to maintain her yard and small orchard.

Fuhriman believes her health is mostly due to heredity.

"I had two brothers and a sister who lived to be in their 90s," she said, adding, "But it won't last — that's what I always say."

Austin believes lifting a ball for three games, twice a week, is probably good strength training for her mother.

"I am surprised that somebody who's 94 is still bowling, but if she's got the stamina, I think it's a valuable experience," said Mark Bigler, chairman of Weber State University's department of social work and gerontology.