Church: Casinos beat out bingo

Church: Casinos beat out bingo
By Asha Anchan
World-Herald staff writer

Omahan Celeste Smith always knew which chair was hers when she walked into Holy Name Catholic Church's Bingo Hall.

It was the same retro style and army green color as hundreds of others, but it had a bright orange sticker on the bottom, reading 'Celeste.' She stuck it on when she first started playing there nearly 17 years ago, and she said people took it seriously.

"Nobody was ever going to be sitting in my chair," said Smith, 55.

When Smith came to the hall on Thursday, however, it wasn't to play bingo. She was there to buy her chair — and any other trinkets she could grab to remember her days there.

Holy Name's Bingo Hall closed during the last week in October. Volunteers transformed the space to mimic a large-scale garage sale.

Now, long tables loaded with priced items such as red globe lamps, crockpots, retired bingo cards, cash registers and TVs are part of a closeout sale that continues today from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., with all proceeds benefiting Holy Name parish and school.

Bingo started at Holy Name Church on Fontenelle Boulevard in the 1950s, and regular games started in 1965. The games moved to Hartman Hall at 60th and Hartman Streets in 1990. Bingo once generated significant revenue for the parish and school, but a recent drop in players dramatically affected profits.

"When casinos opened, we saw numbers decrease," said Colleen Peterson, Holy Name's director of development. "This isn't anything that we ever wanted to do and it took 10 years of lost revenue to get to this point . . . We couldn't justify the business cost to the revenues that were coming in."

In the booming days of bingo, Peterson said, players would pack the hall to its 390 capacity on a good night, holding four events each week. In the waning days, crowds varied from 30 to 100 players during the two days a week that bingo was held.

Smith will have fond memories of the games both in their heyday and with fewer players. She used bingo as a form of stress relief.

When Smith started playing, her son had been diagnosed with cancer and bingo became her outlet during the week.

"It's almost like I lived for Thursday to come so I could go to Holy Name and see all these people that I hadn't seen all week," Smith said. "When my son passed away of cancer, I got back with familiar faces every week . . . It was the best therapy in the world."

She said she has cried a little bit over bingo's demise at Holy Name.

Greeting visitors on Friday, sale worker Jane LaHood pointed out a large desk, chairs and the concession-stand sign that are still for sale. She noted the change in atmosphere at the hall.

"It's bittersweet," said LaHood, a longtime volunteer at Holy Name's Humble Jumble thrift store.

But seeing longtime players and hearing their stories makes it more sweet than bitter, she said.

Volunteers from Holy Name's Humble Jumble store organized the sale, which brought in about $2,000 on Thursday. A total from Friday wasn't available. They hope to sell out by the time they close on Saturday.

In the meantime, the volunteers are mingling with curious shoppers and recounting their own memories of the hall.

Jane's husband, Tom, remembers a man who used to play with 18 bingo cards at once — and no chips to mark what numbers had been called. He was a "bingo savant," Tom LaHood said. He wore a red hat and always remembered what numbers were called, even when he made a trip to the concession stand during a game.

"It was a way to spend an evening or afternoon with the possibility of winning," said Tom, remembering the serious bingo players who played mostly for cash.

The tables were built extra-wide to hold multiple bingo cards, concessions and the lucky charms many players lined up next to their cards, hoping to up their odds of winning.

"The ages of the people that played was older. Now the younger kids want something faster, but at the time it was the social thing to do," Tom said.

In the early days, Holy Name parishioners volunteered at the games, breeding a sense of parish unity among church members and families.

But everything eventually changes.

Hartman Hall was recently sold and the new owner plans to maintain the building as an indoor storage facility.

"All this stuff is changing, but something else will come up," said Barb Rutten, another Humble Jumble store volunteer.

From the first day she hit the jackpot to the day she brought home her designated chair, Smith said, the bingo hall will always be a place that holds many of her memories.

"I just wanted to get my little piece of Holy Name," Smith said. "To go in there after all this time is surreal — that was my home away from home."