Woody Crist was the premiere bowler in the Williamsport area from the late 1970’s through the late 1990’s, during which time he won an unprecedented 15 out of 20 County Association High Seasonal Average Awards, including six in a row between 1978 and 1983 to set a new record for the most consecutive High Seasonal Average Awards.  All toll, Crist finished with the highest seasonal average in the local association in 17 different seasons between 1970 and 1997, by far and away, the most ever in the history of the local Association.  Three of those averages set a new county average record: 224 in 1975, 226 in 1982, and 233 in 1985.  That 224 average was the first seasonal average above 220 by any local association bowler, and that 233 average was the first seasonal average above 230 by any local association bowler.  He finished 9 different seasons with an average above 230.  During his LCBA career, Crist compiled a lifetime average of 213.79 with 2,071,017 pins for 9687 games in 139 leagues.

Woody began his bowling career in 1959 when he entered the junior bowling program at the old Faxon Lanes on East Third Street.  When he wasn’t bowling he was a pin chaser and mechanic behind the new automatic pin setters.  He entered his first adult league in the fall of 1966.  Woody’s career, which ended at the end of the 2002-03 season due to a knee injury, included forty-one career perfect games, nineteen 299 games and six 298 games.   All toll, Woody set 22 scoring records in league and tournament play which placed him among the leaders in the ABC record book at the time, in 7 different categories, including a share of the record for most 299s at fourteen, and a share of the record for most 298s, with five.

Crist was named to the local Association All Star team in 11 different seasons and won 6 Most Valuable Bowler Awards, and surely would have significantly increased those numbers if the All Star and Most Valuable Bowler designations would not have been discontinued after the 1983-84 season.  In 29 consecutive years of participation in the local Bowler of the Year Tournament, Crist averaged 215.4 for 144 games.  By 2003, he won 7 titles spanning 4 decades.

Between 1969 and 2003, Woody captured the local association high series awards in eight different seasons, including the 1994-95 season when he posted his high career series of 858, the second highest series ever recorded in the local association at that time.  Between 1980 and 2002, Crist bowled eighteen 800 series, which was the County record for most career 800 series at that time.  During those years Woody established or tied the County record for most career 800 series on 15 different occasions.  The three 800s he threw during the 1981-82 season set a new county record for most 800s in one season, a record which he tied in the 1994-95 season and again in the 1996-97 season, with that record not being broken until 2007.

In the Three Man Major League at Harvest Moon during the 1993-94 season, Crist set a National ABC record when he bowled his 67^th consecutive series above 600 in the same league

Woody was a member of the Professional Bowlers Association from 1975 to 1977, and again from 1980 to 1982, finishing 10^th in his first of the 13 PBA tournaments in which he participated.  In 11 ABC National Open Tournaments, Woody averaged 191.4.  He participated in 10 PSBA State Tournaments and was a member of the Flexer’s Amusements team that won both the scratch and handicap titles in the 1974 State Tournament.  Crist captured 10 LCBA Championship Tournament titles between 1975 and 1992, including three titles in the 1975 tournament to become only the third bowler in local association history up until that time, to win as many as three titles in one county tournament.  He was inducted into the PSBA Hall of Fame in 1995.

Crist served on the local Association Board of Directors from the early 1990’s to the late 1990’s.

He took on the daunting task of compiling a history of bowling in the Williamsport area.  In 1996, after countless hours of research at the local library and talking with old time bowlers, Crist produced the first printed booklet of the history of the Lycoming County Bowling Association. The booklet was praised by the ABC as one of the best publications of that genre.   He also became the Association’s historian, and amassed a large collection of pictures, plaques, and other bowling memorabilia dating back to the 1920’s.