Chess club has a long history of tournaments both in and outside of FWPA since it was created and ran by Mr. Klumpenhower. However, this year marks the potential for a return of FWPA chess meets.
The beginning of chess club can be traced back to the year 2000 when the former principal and founder of FWPA, Dr. Griffin, noticed a group of students playing chess everyday. Upon this revelation, he had made a call through the district, requesting for someone to potentially advise and run a chess club for FWPA. At that time a Truman principal asked one of her staff members whether or not he would be interested in coaching the club.
“I said sure, and that’s how she lost me,” Mr. Klumpenhower recalls. “Because I ended up coming here, I loved it, I got along with Dr. Griffin and he recruited me to be a teacher the next year.”
From there Mr. Klumpenhower would continue to coach the chess club in FWPA in a two part format that is recognizable in the club today. First teaching how to move the pieces, the technique and then moving onto a tournament contained to the school. Starting from 2002, there have been chess meets with other schools that functioned very similarly to track meets, in where a group of students would go to another school to compete for a prize. This eventually died out around 2007 due to a number of reasons, namely a lack of interest and newer clubs taking priority over Mr. Klumpenhower’s time.
Aside from the years surrounding the pandemic, chess club has continued without issue within FWPA, and this year student participation continues to thrive.
According to Essey Mehreteab, the atmosphere of chess club is easygoing, “I think that like its more fun there’s usually no set thing except for like the tournament. But even the tournament is pretty fun ‘cause you get to talk to your opponent. After you finish a game or two, you can just go and watch the other games. You don’t really have to do anything. So it’s more fun, I think.”
Because of the flexible structure of the club, it creates a space that people are drawn to for different reasons (although, reportedly share much of the same personality.) Some hone their skills, play for entertainment, or just stay to talk to their friends. There has even been a history of other games being played during the club hours, although many of them had been lost after the past creation of clubs such as board game club.
Furthermore, because of the uptick in student participation, there has been a rise of the average skill in the club. “The people in chess club are pretty good for the most part.” Tai Bryant asserts, “and they naturally would get better compared to last year for example. But as Mr. K said, that the past year or 2 has a good group of players.”
Because of the increased interest and the increased skill of the players, the 2025-2026 school year poses a return of out of school chess meets and matches.
Mr. Klumpenhower stated, “This is the first crew I would take to tournament again except for it’s-they don’t have that much, they only do high school now, middle school lost interest. But next year, I have all highschoolers.”
So while this year’s tournament may not be the deciding factor for FWPA reentering a chess meet, it still marks 25 years of a common interest within the school. Since it’s creation, to the start and end of chess meets, through the pandemic and now, chess club maintains.
