How Turkey Bowling became a Thanksgiving tradition at the Herff College of Engineering
September 12, 2026
While many families get ready to bake and butter turkeys this November, the traditional Thanksgiving bird will be used for something very different at the Herff College of Engineering.
In the Engineering Administration second-floor lobby, between makeshift lanes, students will hurl the birds as fast as they can down lanes toward a collection of long-discarded pins in a tradition known as Turkey Bowling.
“We bowl frozen turkeys down bowling lanes, have the pins reset, and we do three frames, because three strikes is a turkey. I lean into the dad joke on that,” said Assistant Dean of Engineering Student Services Dr. Isaiah Surbrook.
Though the concept itself is not original to Surbrook, he introduced it to the Herff College of Engineering in 2017 as a Thanksgiving-themed student unity event that also benefits the Mid-South Food Bank.
“I was talking to someone at another food pantry and they told me, ‘Hey. We’ll take anything. We’re just trying to get rid of food insecurity. But ideally, we’d rather have a dollar versus the item. So, if you have a way to do that and give your food bank money versus cans, your dollar gets stretched exponentially further.’ So, I decided to try and create a fun event around Thanksgiving, when food banks need contributions the most. So, we created Turkey Bowling,” Surbrook said.
There’s no fee to participate in the traditional turkey throw, but donations to the Mid-South Food Bank are encouraged.
Every dollar donated to the Mid-South Food Bank provides four meals for children, families and seniors experiencing food insecurity across West Tennessee, Northern Mississippi and Eastern Arkansas. Surbrook said that at Herff’s most successful Turkey Bowling event to date, the college provided 2,500 meals for families relying on the Mid-South Food Bank. The Herff College of Engineering covers the expenses to host the event and all of the money raised through the fundraiser goes directly to the Mid-South Food Bank. Surbrook challenged all participants in this year’s event to donate $5 to the Mid-South Food Bank, aiming to provide 5,000 meals for food-insecure families in the Mid-South, including those who rely on the University of Memphis Tiger Pantry, which gets much of its food from the Mid-South Food Bank.
Former Herff College of Engineering Dean Dr. Rick Sweigard, who served the college for nine years between June 2013 and June 2022, gave Surbrook plenty of leeway to try different student-oriented events.
“Dean Sweigard was really good at letting me try crazy ideas at least once. I could try something one time and if it worked, great. If not, then we’d scrap it,” Surbrook said.
Students immediately took to the idea, pairing up in teams in the single-elimination tournament for a chance to toss turkeys down the alley. What started as a small, hour-long event in 2017 grew into a 38-team tournament by 2025, but Surbrook almost abandoned it in 2021 when in-person activities resumed after COVID.
“After about three years, right around COVID, I thought, ‘Okay, it was fun. Students kind of seem to enjoy it, but there’s something bigger and better,’” Surbrook said.
He also couldn’t find a use for the turkeys anymore after the first two years.
Not only do the birds get bowled down the lane each time a team steps up, but they also get thrown back, making 12 throws per team. Despite keeping the birds on dry ice during the event and vacuum-sealing them, all that turkey tossing takes its toll.
“We’ve tried everything to keep them more intact, but after the third year no one would take them. Someone on our team tried calling the zoo and they declined to take them, which makes sense. You’re not just going to take a random turkey to feed your lions for the animals' safety. So we just had to throw them away. After last year, I mean, the wrappings were completely gone, and they were thawed. So, as they were hitting the pins, it wasn’t smooth contact. By the end of the day, the pins are covered in juices and turkey blood,” Surbrook said.
Surbrook approached Sweigard about taking the college’s annual Thanksgiving celebration in a different direction, but it was too late. The students had spoken in the form of that year’s six Outstanding Senior Dean Award recipients.
“Marketing did an interview with them and one of the questions was, ‘What’s your favorite memory from your time at Herff?’ Four out of the six said Turkey Bowling. Dean Sweigard said, ‘You can’t stop that. That’s a resounding thing where students are saying they love it,’” Surbrook said.
Though deans have changed at the Herff College of Engineering over the years, the support from the college’s leader has not. Following Herff Turkey Bowling tradition set by Dean Sweigard, Herff College of Engineering Dean Okenwa Okoli has embraced the annual fundraiser by tossing the first turkey himself.
Now in its ninth year, the event has had some former students spend their entire undergraduate years and time in graduate school participating in it. Surbrook hopes to keep the tradition going for Herff alumni, with dreams of creating a Turkey Bowling alumni event soon.
“We have a lot of alumni for whom this is a core memory,” Surbrook said. “My vision is to go find a place like a brewery or somewhere where we can set up the lanes there and do an alumni fundraiser for student services and student works. Let them do a Turkey Bowling championship as alumni.”
While that vision lies in the future, another change to Herff Turkey Bowling debuts this year: an acrylic turkey.
Technicians in the Herff College of Engineering Machine Shop took a turkey and made an acrylic mold of it. Surbrook hopes the acrylic turkey can reduce mess and waste. But the students who participated in the annual event wouldn’t let a real bird fly the coup altogether.
“Last year I decided that we had to do something different here,” Surbrook said. “I was here forever cleaning up all the mess and cleaning each pin individually. And, you know, we have people who are vegetarian and vegan and I want to be respectful of them as well. So, I told them that we have to do something different. They balked, “But then it’s not Turkey Bowling. You’ve got to have turkeys.”
Eventually, Surbrook and Herff’s bowlers reached a compromise. Students will toss the acrylic turkey until the “Elite Eight” round of the tournament. Then two real turkeys will replace the molds, leaving the finalists to gobble their way to glory one turkey toss at a time.