OBX Real Estate

This is a really intriguing article on the family that owns the Nags Head Bowling Center.  

Kin of 'Silent Night' writer run Outer Banks bowling alley

By Mike Gruss
The Virginian-Pilot

Nags Head, N.C. - It's league night at Nags Head Bowling, and the Outer Banks hangout is ready for the holidays.

A Toys for Tots box greets visitors at the door. Animated snow floats through the overhead score projectors. And the chorus of rolling balls and crashing pins is accompanied by a stream of piped-in Christmas music.

When Richard Mohr is listening, one carol might make him cry.

"I can't put my fingers on it," he says from a back office. "It's like how 'The Star-Spangled Banner' is for some people."

Mohr is talking about "Silent Night," a staple of midnight masses, candlelight ceremonies and carol compilations.

Many people know it was written by an Austrian priest in 1816 and performed for the first time in a small church on Christmas Eve. What they don't know is that the priest's relatives, through wars and Ellis Island and more than a half-dozen generations, have kept the composer's name alive for about 150 years. The priest was Josef Mohr.

 Read the Rest of the Article