HOLLAND (WHTC-AM/FM) — She seemed to know everyone, and she remembered their names. She always had — and encouraged other to have — “a grand and glorious day!”
Mary Beverly, perhaps best known among Holland bowlers, died on Monday, Dec. 9, 2019.
Arrangements are pending, and this story will be updated as information becomes available.
Memories and warm remembrances have been pouring out among her friends and fans. For some 40 years, Mary Beverly reported Holland’s women’s bowling news on WHTC. At first, she called in to chat live on the air, but in recent years, she called to record her podcast, her voice so familiar to listeners that someone recently stopped her at the grocery store, asking, “Are you the lady who does the bowling report?”
Jim DeGraaf, WHTC’s men’s bowling reporter and a long-time friend of Beverly’s, said moments like that filled her with delight.
“Even the day before she passed, she was in the bowling centers,” DeGraaf said Monday, describing how she made some Sunday announcements, but also took the mic at one point to address her bowling friends and let them know time was short.
Even yesterday, when DeGraaf asked how she was doing, she gave him her trademark line: “Grand and glorious!”
“We will always remember Mary Beverly as being a grand and glorious lady,” he said.
Oh WHTC’s Facebook page, Carla Wiegand-Mendenhall noted Mary Beverly was “a wonderful lady, her contagious smile and her presence will be dearly missed. Heaven gained another wonderful angel.”Jamie Groover wrote, “When I would see her, after not bowling because of working 2nd, she would ALWAYS give me a big hug and say how you doing kid. She was a beautiful person always happy. At least she was able to go quick and without so much pain! .”Jessica Locmelis called her “a wonderful and inspiring lady!!” adding, “She will forever be missed!Former WHTC News Director Greg Chandler remembers Mary Beverly as “a fixture on our morning show for many years, providing us the updates on what was going on in Holland’s bowling scene. Rest in peace, Mary.””She was so wonderful,” Crystal Lee Meshell Lundy wrote. ” She will be missed.”Many others simply said she’d be missed, or that she was sweet. Diane K. Smith wrote that she knew everyone’s name; Carolyn DeBoer added, “She had a heart of gold.”
She joined theHolland Woman’s Bowling Association board in 1980, and was named secretary of the year in 1996. When the woman and men’s associations merged in 1997, she became the new board’s vice president. The Holland Women’s Bowling Association Women’s dedicated its 2003 tournament to her. She was the Friday night league’s secretary for 33 years; and also served the Senior League at BAM, among other duties.
She loved working tournaments, DeGraaf said, because she loved meeting new peple.
