Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, March 17, 1990 TAG: 9003162572
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV2 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: Madelyn Rosenberg
DATELINE: PULASKI LENGTH: Medium
"This is the the loudest chess team I've ever seen," said Diann Gardner, the team's sponsor. Gardner opens her classroom early each morning so the students can come in and practice.
"You can hear them all the way down the hall," she said. "They're sprawled all over the floor, cheering."
Chess players of all ages in Pulaski County have reason to be loud.
They have checkmated their way to five national titles in the past seven years. This year they won the primary, elementary, junior-high and high-school divisions at the state tournament in Roanoke.
"If you go to the chess nationals and say you're from Pulaski - well, it's a reverent place to be from," Gardner said.
"If you say you're from Pulaski, people turn their heads and listen," agreed Rich Jackson, a chess master who works with the Roanoke school system.
Organizers of chess clubs here have received letters from as far away as Israel asking about their program.
Some have been particularly interested in how Pulaski teaches the intricate game to mentally handicapped children.
Pete Shaw, a computer science teacher at Pulaski Middle School, began teaching chess to learning disabled, emotionally disabled and mentally handicapped kids several years ago.
"It was a study on my part as much as anything else," Shaw said. "It revelaled weaknesses in their thinking processes. I can't say we cured anything, because there is no cure, but it was a good diagnostic tool."
Shaw said he watched the chess games of one student and decided that the student wasn't mentally handicapped.
"He watched the kids play and all of a sudden, he could play it," Shaw said. "Here's a kid who could hardly read and write, and he's taking chess notation. We found out he wasn't mentally retarded, but culturally deprived. I felt I was on to a good thing and stayed with it."
Shaw gave up the chess program this year to devote more time to his computer classes.
Nancy McDaniel, who sponsors the chess club at Critzer Elementary School, said special education students feel good about playing chess - and about winning.
Five years ago, a chess organizer in Roanoke asked McDaniel to bring some of her students to the city to play chess against "special students" there.
"When someone says `special students' to me, I think they mean emotionally disturbed or learning disabled," she said. And those were the ones she took to Roanoke.
"It didn't take me two minutes to figure out his special students were TAG [talented and gifted] students," McDaniel said. "But we beat them! We won the match!"
Jackson said four of the stronger chess programs in the U.S are within a few hundred miles of each other: Pulaski and Giles counties, Roanoke, and Charlotte, N.C.
"The only area that would stand above us would be New York City," Jackson said. "There's more going on here than in many parts of the country."
Fran Shelton, team sponsor at Pulaski County High, said the county's teams have done well this year, despite the absence of a experienced chess coach.
"The kids help each other," said Shelton, whose son, Jeffrey, is a four-time high school chess champ.
Recently, the team began practicing chess at the middle school on computer programs, Shelton said. "It's giving them some competition and it's pretty fun. There are a lot of teaching aids."
The program allows the players to control their pieces using a mouse, a computer device that moves the chess pieces.
But Shelton said the best competition comes at tournament times when players of similar skills stare at each other over a chess board.
The Pulaski teams have played in national tournaments across the country. This year, the elementary school teams will compete in Florida. The junior high school team will play in Utah and the high school team will compete in Missouri.
The Pulaski County Chess Education Association - mostly parents of chess players - raises money to help the students pay for their trips, Shelton said.
This weekend, though, about 100 chess players from other parts of the country will come to Pulaski County High as the chess education association hosts the Atlantic Coast Chess Championships.
To scholastic chess players, ACC means chess, not basketball.
by CNB