The North Bend Eagle

 


Brain Straw will be the new owner and manager of the Tiger Pin, North Bend’s bowling alley. His wife Mary will join him after the school year.

Texas transplant takes over Tiger Pin

by Nathan Arneal
Published 1/8/25

Four years ago, Brian Straw would not have considered himself a bowler.

Then, shortly after he and his wife Mary moved to Columbus, Texas, for teaching jobs, the family was looking for something fun to do. They found a bowling alley about 45 minutes away and made the trip.

“We liked it,” Straw said. “We had fun. We enjoyed it as a family.”
One thing led to another, and now the family is moving to North Bend, Nebraska, to own and operate the Tiger Pin bowling alley.

Straw will be closing the deal to become the Tiger Pin’s new owner in the coming days. Ken Streff has been one of the owners of Tiger Pin since 2019. At that time, there was a four-person ownership group that has since been whittled down to two, with Streff being the lone owner who still lives in Nebraska. Therefore, much of the daily management of the Tiger Pin fell to Streff and his wife Becky, who are both full-time teachers at NBC. Understandably, it was a bit much for one family to handle.

“My family and I are busy with school and activities,” Streff said, “and I was simply not able to give enough attention to the bowling alley to make it successful.”

Enter Straw, who is excited to get going.

“There’s a lot of good things that already happen here,” Straw said. “We want to bring the bowling back. I’ve heard stories of what it was. We want to bring that back and make it the primary (function) of the place.”

Straw, an Air Force veteran, grew up around Dallas. He graduated from high school in 1994 from Forney, Texas, just east of Dallas. At the time, he said, Forney was about the size of North Bend, though it has now grown to more than 20,000 people.

As a kid, he spent most of his spare time in the local roller skating rink and traveled the country competing in roller speed skating events.

“Competition is in my blood,” he said.

He taught music and band at the junior/senior high school in Columbus, a town of about 3,700 between Houston and San Antonio.
His wife teaches special ed there. She and their 18-year-old son Casey, a senior, are staying in Texas to finish the school year.

Daughter Cadence has moved to Nebraska with dad and is joining the sophomore class at North Bend Central this week.

This summer Mary will come north to join the Tiger Pin staff.

“The plan is to be a family business,” Brian Straw said. “We’re going to be all in here and make it work. Obviously, we both have the option if we need to go back to education, we could probably do that, too.”

Little did the Straws know an afternoon family outing four years ago would be so life-changing.

Read the full story in the print or e-edition.

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