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This standard way the chessboards are set up to play chess in chess club. This is important so some players don’t have an unfair advantage. It is possible that the students could learn of this to go through life without cutting corners. Quick says, “You don’t have to be smart to play chess but chess makes you smarter.”

Walking through the English hallways after school on Thursdays, students may walk into room C218 and find a new club. The chess club has been revived in the high school.

In previous years, there have been chess clubs after school, but they didn’t last. Chess interest throughout the U.S has decreased in past years. Mostly due to the evolving technology that younger generations are getting their hands on to for entertainment. Now the chess club is making a comeback because of the leadership of students and staff putting it back together for the love of chess and the benefits of it.

The English teacher who got the ball rolling on this club was Corey Quick. He wanted to bring the chess club back for multiple reasons, including life lessons that could be learned from the game.

Quick said, “Chess teaches students a lot of skills. It teaches people to think ahead, be strategic and react to their mistakes. There is a lot to learn from playing chess.  You can learn the game very quickly, but you can never master it.”

Quick knew students would want to be in the club, he just needed some people to get those students to join the club. One of these students was junior Evan Campbell. Campbell wanted to join a chess club at the high school, but couldn’t find one. This is when the pieces came together to start the chess club.

Campbell said, “I wanted to join chess club but had no clue if the school had one. When I learned we didn’t have one yet, I wanted to help start it up, cause why not. It would be fun.”

Campbell and fellow junior David Leintz set out to gather the students looking to join. They got around 25-30 people.

Leintz explained, “If you enjoy chess and you have a community to come to and play with.  Now will have a community to play with… I guess everyone who wants to play now has a partner to play with.”

After they gathered chess players, they decided to meet on Thursdays from 2:30-3:30 p.m. after school.

Quick explained, “We chose Thursday because that day of the week is named for the Norwegian god, Thor (Thors-Day) and, interestingly enough, when he wasn’t swinging that big old hammer around, he was fond of playing chess with his brother, Loki.”

The first meeting for chess club was Oct. 27 from 2:30-3:30 p.m. after school.

Campbell said, “It’s not a strict club. It’s just meant to have fun and checkmate some friends.”

Junior Evan Campbell finishes to why one should come to chess club. Campbell said,  “It’s fine if you don’t know how to play. There’s no better place to learn.”