LEWISTON — The scene at Just-In-Time Recreation seems so normal. Young kids rolling bowling balls down lanes. Other kids fidgeting with each other in their seats, waiting for their turns or running around. Parents sitting in chairs and on benches as they watch the kids, with bowling balls and bags tucked between their feet. It’s just another youth bowling league practice. 

But behind the scenes, behind the smiles on faces and light chatter, is an extraordinary resolve and resiliency that brought parents and children back to a youth bowling league shattered when a gunman fired on bowlers — including several adults and about 18 children involved in the league — at Just-In-Time the night of Oct. 25, 2023.

Eight people died there before the gunman killed 10 more at Schemengees Bar & Grille. Thirteen others were shot and wounded between the two locations, and more suffered other injuries.

Walking back into Just-In-Time Recreation six months after the incident was difficult for Amy Bushway, secretary of the LAUSBCA Youth Bowling League. The lanes had been updated and new fixtures added, but she still struggled with knowing what happened there Oct. 25.

She never wanted to go back, but she did because her son, Owen, 14, a member of the youth bowling league, wanted to continue bowling where his passion for the sport was born and in the league he had participated in since age 4.

“I never would have gone back if it weren’t for the kids,” she said. “I never would have continued. I probably would have disbanded the league or ended if it was just me. But the kids, soon after, were just like ‘When are we going to bowl again?’ They didn’t want to lose something that they love, that they’ve done for years.”

She and Owen were not at the bowling alley that night, but they both knew many of the people who died there, including 14-year-old Aaron Young, a member of the youth league. Bowling coach Bob Violette and his wife, Lucy, also died that night, a couple of the most influential people involved with the young bowlers.

Leaders of the league first moved the remaining league season to Interstate Bowling Center in Augusta after the incident. The league continued there, but some bowlers struggled because it wasn’t their bowling alley; Just-In-Time had become a bowling home to some of the kids.

At first it was unclear if the bowling alley would reopen in the weeks after the incident. Youth bowling coach Adam Jordan was prepared to respect whatever decision bowling alley owners made, whether that was to reopen or stay closed, he said.

Ultimately the owners, Justin and Samantha Juray, decided to reopen, but not before renovating. Jordan was close to the owners, as many in the local bowling community were, and he helped with the reconstruction — donating his time any way he could.

“I was 100%. I wanted to see them succeed,” he said, “for the type of people they are and the fact that they wanted to keep this place open for the community. They didn’t do it for them. This was 100% a decision because they knew coach Bob (Violette) would want them to.”

When Just-In-Time renovations were complete and league members were invited to tour the place a couple of days before it reopened, there were mixed emotions, Bushway said. For the most part, the kids seemed to manage better than the adults.

“There was a lot of anxiety, I think, for parents to go back,” Bushway said. “… I wasn’t there that night, but just knowing what took place there and that kind of image in your head and trying to overcome that or to be OK, was difficult. I think it was more difficult for parents than for the kids, because the kids went in and just bowled. We went in and were kind of like standing there.”

For son Owen, the renovations at Just-In-Time made it feel like a new place, he said. Yet even with the renovations and the roughly six months of not being in the building, he said it still felt familiar to him.

“Like, I’ve been here my whole life, but this is an entirely new place that I’ve never been, that’s what it felt like when I walked in the first time, just touring around, seeing all the different like tributes and colors,” Owen said.

Deklynn Lynch, 9, of Lewiston works with his coach, Kenny Moore, on Oct. 9 during youth practice at Just-In-Time Recreation in Lewiston. Daryn Slover/Sun Journal

LIKE A FAMILY

Evan Jordan, 16, thinks the bowling community is what has drawn many of the kids and families back to the youth league despite the Oct. 25 tragedy.

“If something like this happened somewhere else, they probably wouldn’t come back,” he said. “It’s such a big part of the community they wanted to try it and felt safe enough to continue coming back.”

The kids in the league seemed more ready to return to bowling than the parents were, he said.

For the last six months or so, he has focused less on bowling for high scores and more on being involved with the sport, he said. That mindset has helped him take a bit of pressure off his shoulders.

Between Oct. 25 and when the bowling alley reopened, Evan tried to process what happened there, but he’s not sure he’s processed the way others have, he said. He and his father, Adam Jordan, were not there that night, but they knew many of the people who were and he wants them to be remembered.

Since returning to Just-In-Time, youth bowling coach John Gove has seen a lot of strength and resilience in the kids, he said.

“I think a lot of the kids are stronger than a lot of us adults,” he said. “I had my hesitation, but I knew immediately that if the kids were coming back, I was coming back.”

Bob Violette saw the potential in Gove and helped him to become a coach himself. Now Gove hopes to pass on lessons he learned from Violette to the youth he now coaches in the league, he said.

“I knew immediately after everything, once this place reopened, without hesitation, I would come back and take over practice — I just knew it,” he said. “Because it meant so much to me and I know it means so much to others. As long as I have a pulse, I hope to be a part of it.”

Bob Violette was more than just a bowling coach to Gove. Through bowling, Violette taught Gove how to take responsibility for his own actions and how to conduct himself, he said. Even through his struggles this last year, Gove said he used the lessons he learned from Violette to keep him from doing things out of bitterness and frustration that he might regret later.

“In the 12 years I’ve been around bowling (Violette’s) always been there,” he said. “He wasn’t just my mentor, he was a coach, he was my friend, somebody I truly valued and cherished.”

The Violettes’ son and daughter-in-law have carried on the youth bowling coach’s legacy through the Bob and Lucy Violette Bowling Foundation, which promotes youth bowling. There was a tournament at Just-In-Time on Aug. 10 held in honor of the two.

The tight-knit youth bowling league is what helped Tammy Asselin feel better about returning, she said. “It’s a family and it’s a really good family. … We blend in and it becomes almost seamless, so that anybody who’s not the wiser, you’d swear we were all here. It’s how we are, we’re there for each other.”

After the incident, sometimes she finds herself withdrawing, so showing up to bowling practices and connecting with other families has helped her, she said.

“These moments that I can come here and meet other families and chat with other parents, it’s healthy for me to,” she said. “It’s a necessary thing and I remind myself of that. … Because it’s easy for me to get trapped in the house, more so than I thought would be possible.”

Owen Bushway, center, waits for his turn to bowl on Oct. 6 during a youth tournament at Just-In-Time Recreation in Lewiston. “Going from October to May, it had been so long, but it felt like I had never left,” he said of his return to the lanes. Daryn Slover/Sun Journal

‘THAT CAN’T BE’

During their Wednesday night practice on Oct. 25, 2023, youth league bowlers were using lanes on both sides of the building at Just-In-Time.

Asselin and her daughter, Toni, 11, were at the bowling alley when the gunman entered. Asselin stood frozen in place, with her young daughter not far behind her, on the left side of the building when the first shots rang out, she said.

It replays in slow motion in her head, a person running down a bowling lane in only their socks, loud indiscernible noises and chaos starting to ensue, she said. She could not immediately comprehend what she was seeing until the shooter came into sharp focus in front of her.

“It wasn’t until about the third shot when my mind went ‘That can’t be, oh my gosh,’” she said. “Now I’m seeing the unfortunate death of individuals, but my head was still not wanting to accept what I’m seeing.”

Still in utter disbelief, just as the assailant turned to her direction, she dove to the side, landing hard on bags of bowling equipment, feeling stunned by the pain of her fall.

Her daughter was nowhere around her — she could not see her, she said. Someone nearby flipped over a table in an effort to gain some kind of protection, but Asselin still felt exposed and knew that if the assailant came near where she was there would be nothing to shield her.

She army-crawled over to the wall and maneuvered herself over a child, in hopes that at least they could be saved, but she was still exposed, she said.

League President Kenny Moore was on the same side of the building that night with about a dozen parents and kids when he started hearing the gunshots.

“My first instinct was to get people out of the building,” he said. “So, I ran mainly (with) kids, the parents followed, but my focus was on the kids, got them to the exit.”

Once he ushered some of the kids out to safety, he did not think twice to go back in and try to help others, he said.

Moore was just going back into the building when the assailant was walking out, he said. Sometimes he wishes now that he never went back into the building because what he saw has stayed with him since, sometimes pervading his mind unexpectedly.

“I couldn’t just walk away, I pray to God that I would have walked away, because it probably would have made things a lot easier, but it’s not who I am,” he said. “That’s not in my nature. I still had people in here that I was concerned with.”

He called the scene “devastating” as he recalled seeing at least five people who he cared about dead.

Coach Gove was helping young bowlers in lanes on the other side of the building when the gunman entered. Though he was open and exposed, he noticed that the assailant was targeting people who moved, so with one kid huddled under him, he told the kids around him not to move.

Some of his actions were automatic and he does not remember doing them, such as pulling one kid down to the floor — a story one witness told him after the incident. Much of what he remembers of that night is based on what he saw happening in front of him.

Cody Jordan, 10, of Lewiston celebrates after his buddy threw a nice ball during youth practice at Just-In-Time Recreation in Lewiston. Grayson Koenig, 8, of Auburn is at left. Mason Moore, 15, of Lisbon is at back right. Daryn Slover/Sun Journal

‘NO SWITCH’

Gove was one of the last people to leave the bowling alley that night, he said. He stayed to help people who were struggling with their emotions, he said. Having Asperger’s, which is an autism spectrum disorder, his emotions essentially “shut off” in those moments, which is not uncommon for people with the condition.

However, it also means that his responses tend to be bigger in the long run because he lacks some of the filters in his brain that most other people have, Gove said. So, right after the incident he met with his doctors and was able to get medical assistance for the ongoing distress caused by the traumatic incident.

Having lost six people close to him that night, social media posts and other reminders of those who died at the bowling alley tend to trigger him – including Aaron Young, whom he coached, he said. He felt survivor’s guilt for a while, and he still struggles to accept Aaron’s death particularly.

Sometimes being at the bowling alley can upset him, but he keeps himself narrowly focused when he is coaching the kids, he said. But he also gives himself moments to feel negative emotions and then let them pass.

“I never try to stop or distract myself. I try to really let myself feel it and let go, like a leaf going downstream,” he said. “And I let it come and go and I’ve learned a lot of mental tricks to help me with that.”

League President Moore also wasted no time seeking mental health help for himself, expecting that he would likely experience long-term struggles caused by the incident. He now sees a counselor.

“That was one thing that I did fairly early after it happened, like I knew immediately, this was insane, like the fact that I went through this, I cannot try to skate through this because I will end up dead, my kid will end up without a father and I’m just going to be another tragic statistic from something crazy,” he said. “And I made a decision very early that I’m determined to not let that happen.”

There were days in the last year in which he would just sit in his home not doing anything because his mind felt stuck on the incident. He also has trouble recalling the six months after the incident, including hunting season and Christmas.

A Lewiston keychain hangs Oct. 9 from Jamie Jordan’s belt loop during youth bowling practice at Just-In-Time Recreation in Lewiston. Jordan’s two children are youth bowlers. Daryn Slover/Sun Journal

“There’s no switch. I can’t control when I’m going to think about it,” he said.

Things got better toward the beginning of summer, as he started going out and doing more things. He tries to show up to events and practices even on days he is struggling a lot, as getting out of the house helps. However, he has been struggling to do things again the last couple of months as the one-year date of the incident approaches.

He still has moments at the bowling alley when the images from that night creep into his head and cause him some distress, he said. He has a hard time bowling in certain lanes. Sometimes he finds himself asking impossible questions, such as why he was there that night and why he made certain decisions.

He is also left with the realization that an incident like this could happen anywhere. “At a restaurant or at a golf course,” he said. “I’ve been on the golf course looking over my shoulder.”

Once Asselin got out of the bowling alley, it was nearly an hour until she got word that her daughter was safe and unharmed. Toni had escaped and another bowling family took her to their home nearby shortly after getting out of the building.

Though the mother and daughter were not wounded in the shooting, the mental and emotional toll has changed them.

They are still working on feelings of distress when they are not near each other. Toni also struggles with nightmares about someone breaking into their home and taking her or harming loved ones — something that started after the shooting. It’s made her feel less safe in her day-to-day life.

“Rocking her sense of safety that she’s building up, she constantly feels like it’s just a second away from being torn away from her,” Asselin said. “For her, it almost feels intensely too easy for somebody to rip it away, even though we’ve done all this work to try to build that safety back up for her.”

Asselin tries to be a role model for her daughter, teaching her to focus on the positive rather than dwelling in the negative. It’s healthy to process the negative feelings, she said, but she hopes to teach her daughter to take that and turn it into a more positive result.

“I keep trying to look for and use as examples of how can I be a role model to her and others, can I use my voice in a positive way for maybe those who can’t voice or don’t want to voice,” she said.

A SEASON TO BE BRAVE

Toni Asselin, 11, of Lewiston talks with Cody Jordan, 10, during a recent youth bowling practice at Just-In-Time Recreation in Lewiston. Toni remembers bowling her first ball on lane 15, when she was 9. Daryn Slover/Sun Journal

Toni remembers the first lane she ever bowled in was lane 15 at Just-In-Time, when she was nine, she said. She remembers feeling scared the ball would go in the gutter, but instead she knocked pins down. From then on, she knew she liked bowling. It wasn’t something she wanted to give up after Oct. 25.

The first time she returned to the bowling alley after the shooting, before it was opened to the public, she felt happy. She didn’t cry, she said. She went behind the lanes and saw the route some people took to get out of the building that night.

Her mother was working through more emotions that day, Toni said. “She couldn’t stop crying.”

Though the place looked different, it felt the same to Toni, she said. She still struggles with being in the building at times, she said, “sometimes, but not all the time.”

She bowled her highest scratch series during the first week of the season — a 431, which is a good score for her age group, according to her mom. That score is far above the 382 high score she achieved last year.

Bowling has always been coach Gove’s safe place, and he still feels that way at Just-In-Time, he said. He does not want the incident to define the bowling alley or the youth league, he said. Returning is about the kids.

“I want it to represent a level of fortitude, resilience and the passion that these kids have for this sport,” he said.

The youth league is 55 kids strong this season, with most of the kids from last year returning, though some families have not been able to return. That’s understandable, says Bushway, the secretary for the youth league. Attendance had been waning over the years, but this is the highest number of kids signed up since she’s been with the league.

“A majority of those kids are back and want to bowl and they’re the reason that I was like, all right, if they’re saying they’re going to do this, then I’m going to do this,” she said. “If they’re strong enough to go back after what they saw, what they went through, then I need to get going too.”

The kids have also leaned on each other this season, helping one another with their game and technique, Toni Asselin said. Her goal for this bowling season is to beat her high score, have fun, and be braver, which means “be stronger and be more fierce.”