Emery Adkins

Emery Adkins, whom co-workers called one of North Carolina's pre-eminent bowling technicians, died Friday, July 1, 2005, of heart failure at his home in Cary, NC. He was 77. For 27 years, Emery Adkins made sure the pins kept falling at Western Lanes Bowling Center on Hillsborough Street. "He was probably the best Brunswick bowling lanes mechanic in the state," said Ken Strickland, a co-worker since Adkins' first day at the bowling alley in 1974. Adkins the son of the late Effie Egnor and Marshall Adkins was born June 2, 1928, in Horse Creek, WV. He married Evelyn, his wife of 54 years, in Miami, W.Va. Emery Adkins started out as a television repairman, until he began to lose his sight because the work was too close, his wife said. The couple bowled twice a week, so he enrolled in a bowling mechanic school. He worked at White Oak Lanes in Oak Hill, WV in the early 1960Â’s. He moved to Raleigh in 1974, after time in West Virginia and Durham. Evelyn Adkins described her husband as a "workaholic" and a mentor to younger mechanics. About eight years ago, a N.C. State University student painted a mural of a bowling scene on a wall at Western Lanes. It shows people knocking down pins and in one corner, a man wearing his blue work shirt standing next to a ladder, smoking a cigar -- a characteristic Adkins pose. Adkins called his cigar his "pacifier," and people who worked at the bowling alley would tease him about it, but there was no fooling about his commitment to keeping the balls rolling. "He was dead serious about his job," Strickland said. "He could joke with you and talk politics and stuff, but there was no joking as far as his job was concerned." Four years ago, Adkins was forced into retirement because of health problems and a fall at the bowing alley. "He left a lot of people in Raleigh that will remember him," Evelyn Adkins said. No services are planned; his family plans to scatter his ashes near his birthplace in West Virginia. In addition to his wife, he is survived by his youngest daughter, Cindy Autry of Providence, R.I.; brother Clifford Adkins of Raleigh, NC; sister, Ruby Garrett and husband Robert, of Oak Hill, WV; grandson, Daniel Autry of Apex; sisters-in-law, Helen Adkins of Marmet, WV, Lissie Vaughn of Tennessee, Betty Reager and husband, Tommy, of Kentucky and Faye Arthur of Florida. Adkins was preceded in death by his eldest daughter, Abby Fletcher; a sister, Mildred and four brothers, Charles, Harry, Kenneth and Ralph. The family asked that memorials to be sent to the Hospice of Wake County: 1300 St. Mary's St., Raleigh N.C. 27605.