Club strategy: Recruit more players of chess
Beth Rickers Worthington Daily Globe
Published Monday, March 02, 2009
Worthington Daily Globe – Worthington, MN, USA
SIBLEY, Iowa — Jodene Kruse and John Flores share a love for chess, and their passion for the game has evolved into a mission to find other chess devotees and cultivate more players.
Their first step was to start a chess club in northwest Iowa, and the Sibley Chess Club recently began meeting with a handful of players on Sunday afternoons at the Pizza Ranch in Sibley. Kruse is the group’s president, while Flores is secretary.
“It’s a club for all ages,” emphasized Kruse, who was taught to play by a friend and now volunteers to teach the game to second- and third-grade students during lunch hours at the elementary school in Sibley.
First picking up the game as a teen growing up in Texas, Flores has been playing chess for most of his life.
“Over 30 years,” he said. “I started playing right before I went into my freshman year in high school. I played all through my high school years, college, the Marine Corps and ever since.”
Flores appreciates how the game exercises his brain as well as some of its other benefits.
“It helps you think,” he explained. “It really helps you plan ahead and use your brain, and that translates into other areas of life. It’s competitive, and you get to meet new people, make new friends. I’ve worked with kids for several years now, and I’m a firm believer that chess can help prepare kids for life, but also help kids with their school work in many areas. Studies have been done to support that.”
Moving from Mankato to Sibley originally to work at the Worthington Area Language Academy in Bigelow, Flores is now employed at Rosenboom Machine & Tool. At one time, he was a paid chess coach in Texas.
Here is the full article.
John Flores is awesome. Well done dude!