FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Media Contact: Matt Bowden
Email: mtbowden1@jhu.edu
Phone: 410-735-6045

BALTIMORE May, 2007— Three Baltimore City Public School (BCPS) chess teams made a bit of history this March when they took the title of Maryland State Chess Champions, a first for the City Schools.

"No other school system in Maryland earned trophies in as many divisions as Baltimore City," said BCPS Chess Project Director Steve Alpern. "The Chess Project showed the rest of Maryland that the Baltimore City Schools are serious about chess." Over 60 of the best public and private school teams from across the state competed in the event.

On Tuesday, May 22, the 12 players from these teams, and over 150 more from 50 Baltimore City schools, will gather for the 3rd annual BCPS Chess Tournament, held in the Levering Hall Glass Pavilion on the Johns Hopkins Homewood Campus from noon to four p.m.

The event is co-sponsored by the Johns Hopkins Center for Talented Youth (CTY), who conducts the nation's oldest and most extensive academic talent search and offers educational programming for students with exceptionally high academic ability. Six of the twelve students from the championship teams have participated in CTY’s annual academic Talent Search.

“I started playing chess because I thought it was a challenging game that you had to use your mind on,” said Morgan Brown, a 4^th grade chess player at Cross Country Elementary School and a Talent Search participant. “I like that it’s a game where you can actually play to strengthen your mind and have fun at the same time.”

These students’ success, according to Alpern, shows “that when we give our students adequate resources and the support they need, they can do anything.”

You can find out more about the BCPS Chess Project when you listen to students and coaches interviewed on 88.1 WYPR's Marc Steiner Show. 

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