FACE Amusement co-founder and longtime industry leader Clarence Mabe was among this year’s Amusement Industry Hall of Fame inductees.
As the story goes, Coach Mabe of Gray, Tenn., noticed that his student-athletes were becoming fascinated with an exciting new phenomenon – video games. This was 1978 and he saw an opportunity and purchased his first video game system, Space Invaders, and placed it in a friend’s convenience store.
Shortly after buying Space Invaders, Mabe purchased a Skee-Ball machine to add to his collection and S&M Amusements was born. He was also a pioneer of crane machines. The company grew into one of the largest crane machine routes in the country and is still going strong.
In 1987, he bought Rockin’ Raceway, his first FEC. It was there that Clarence laid the foundation for the values that continue throughout FACE Amusement facilities today: Faith, Attitude, Consistency and Excellence. (In 2013, Mabe’s two younger sons, Bucky and Rusty, joined forces with their father and Mark Larkey to create FACE Amusement.)
