The families behind Granite Curling Club's 75th year

Seattle Fitness Magazine · 8 Oct 2026

• 5sheets of ice
• $5,000kozai building gift
• 3generations of champions

A rink in Ballard

Jimmy Stephens co-owned and managed the Ballard Ice Arena, where the Granite Curling Club began meeting in 1951, and for the first decade he made the ice himself. This fall the club marks what it bills as its 75th year, and the 65th in its own building near Haller Lake. Granite was founded in 1951 as an organization and in 1961 as a facility.

Arnold and Gail Piper got in at the start by answering a newspaper ad looking for anyone interested in starting a curling club in Seattle. Women at first could join only as social members, until the club needed members for its own building and changed the rules so women could curl on par with men. Gail went on to lead the Granidears, a group the club credits with "untold volunteer hours".

Who paid for the building

Stephens was Granite's secretary while its building went up, and he was one of 14 trustees named in the club's articles of incorporation, along with Arnold Piper and Cliff Cruickshank, whom the club honors as a founder and its second president. The club credits Betty and Kearney Kozai, "one of our founding families", with putting up $5,000 to help finance construction, followed by fundraisers in the early years.

Kearney, an Oahu-born Army veteran of World War II and a Boeing engineer, helped build the club in 1961; the Museum of History & Industry calls him "the only known Japanese-American curler at the time". Phil Shryock, a former club president, put it plainly to KING 5 in 2022: "We have members of this club that mortgaged their own homes in the 50s to pay for this building."

Three generations on one list

The club calls itself home to "more national champions than any other club in the US", and one family runs through that list for three generations. Betty Kozai, who ran the "Monday Early Bird" novice league, won the 1980 women's national title on a team with her daughter, Sharon. Sharon won again in 1987 as Sharon Good, and as Sharon Vukich she took senior women's titles in 2009 and 2010.

The 2010 title, 30 years after the 1980 win, put mother and daughter on the same team again. In 2009 the Associated Press had found Betty, then 80, still curling three times a week. "How many sports can you play with your grandparents?" Sharon's daughter, Emily Good, then 25, told the AP that year. Emily went on to win national titles of her own, a women's club title in 2012 and a mixed title in 2016.

Brothers, a father and a son

Brothers Jason and Joel Larway won men's national titles together in 1992, 2001 and 2004, the first on a team with Tom Violette.

ESPN reported in January 2002 that they had taken out lines of credit on their mortgages to cover the team's $45,000 legal fees, run up fighting for the right to compete in the Olympic trials. They made the trials but missed the cut. Joel has since added two senior men's titles, the latest in 2023. Violette also won in 1990, and his son, Luc, first picked up curling at 5 and went on to five U.S. junior titles.

Tom, who now curls in Wisconsin, told WSAW in January that when Luc was a teenager the drive to the club was "an hour there, an hour back". Ben Richardson came to Granite as a teenager on the suggestion of his grandmother, a former curler in Saskatchewan, and he told KUOW last December that "every member there just completely embraced me as a new curler." In February, he and Luc went to the Winter Olympics with Team USA.

Upstairs at Sheet 6

The Seattle Times reported in 2024 that little had changed since the building went up in 1961: hand-painted signs, blonde wood, a wooden roof arching over the ice. The cold room, usually about 40 degrees, holds five sheets, the long lanes of ice the game is played on. Upstairs, the warm room looks down on them through long windows, and the club jokingly calls its bar "Sheet 6". Members even built the tables, the Times reported, and member-volunteers still maintain the building, run the leagues and organize the bonspiels, as curlers call their tournaments.

The club recalls Cindy Kozai joining her mother, Betty, in the kitchen to keep food coming all weekend at bonspiels, a tradition it says continues. The Kozai Cup, named for the family, is an invitation-only bonspiel for members ranked by volunteer hours, and this year's was played Oct. 3. Lori Markham, now the club's vice president, told KNKX last year that the club is "essentially a big, dysfunctional family".

Oct. 17, and a first throw

The club billed Saturday, Oct. 17 as a celebration of "GCC's 75th Year (65th year in our building)" and invited current and former members, their families and guests "to share stories with old friends". The schedule runs from a 2 p.m. open house with a charcuterie spread to a 4:30 p.m. ceremony with a bagpipe procession, speeches and a toast, then dinner and cake at 5:30 p.m. or when the ceremony ends. Dinner is $20 for those not in the bonspiel.

The party sat inside Knock the Dust Off, the club's yearly two-day bonspiel, October 18. The invitation asks members and their guests to stop by during the bonspiel weekend to "watch some ends", use the photobooth or throw a few stones, with the bar open. Newcomers start with Try Curling, also called Learn to Curl: two hours on the ice, mixing instruction with a short game, for $70 a person. Fall dates included Oct. 24, for adults, friend groups and families with kids 7 and up. The club is at 1440 N. 128th St., near Haller Lake.