sounds like you want the alpha-numeric groups retained...

    my $string = "bob 299 frank 107 ted 300";
    my @array = split /\s+/, $string;
    for ($i=0;$i<@array;$i++) {
        $newarray{$array[$i]} = $array[($i + 1)];
        $i++;
    }
    foreach (keys %newarray) {
        print "key $_\n     $newarray{$_}\n";
    }
[download]