The 2009 student bridge scholarship competition was held as a part of the American Contract Bridge League (ACBL) Unit 131 Sectional Tournament held at the firefighters Hall at 6320 Manchester Avenue in Kansas City on Friday, April 24. Unit 131 paid to bus the students from the Lee’s Summit School District so that they could play in the sectional; they could see what it was like as the adults played in another section of the tournament, starting just 1 hour after the kids; and perhaps most importantly the adults could see them play and encourage them to continue.
The 20 students ranging from 6th grade through 12th grade were all students of Kathy Rolfe who has been teaching bridge within the Lee’s Summit School District since 2002. She has taught primarily in the ASPIRE classes. All the students sat down to play at 5 tables, playing 15 boards (each board is a hand of bridge) in a standard Mitchell movement. The session was directed by Kathy Rolfe and by ACBL tournament director Chris Patrias, who was also busy running the adult sections of bridge.
At the end of the afternoon the top North-South pair and the top East-West pair won not only their silver masterpoints, but also a trophy provided by Unit 131, and each player also received a $50 scholarship to be used for their post-secondary education. The scholarship is funded from the Eugene J. Rolfe Memorial Education Fund administered by the Truman Heartland Community Foundation. In addition to the top places, both pairs each direction finishing second also received masterpoints. In addition, the 4th overall pair collected masterpoints.
Many of the students playing either joined ACBL this year or had previously joined ACBL when they played in previous Scholarship Tournaments. This is important because it is one step they need to take in order to be eligible to win an additional scholarship which will be given for the first time this spring to graduating senior Trevor Houston. Any graduating senior who has the required grade point average, is a member of ACBL, has at least 1 masterpoint, and is a former student of Kathy Rolfe is eligible to win a $500 scholarship which in turn is renewable for another 3 years if the student maintains their GPA and continues to add to their masterpoints each year while retaining ACBL membership.
The winners of this competition were: North-South: Garrett Newsom and Evan Smith, 6th graders at Cedar Creek Elementary and East-West: Laura McGehee and Alexandria Meyers also 6th graders at Cedar Creek Elementary. Garrett and Evan each received .63 silver masterpoints for their 1st place overall with a 65.83% game. Laura and Alexandria each received .35 silver masterpoints for their first E/W and 3rd overall with a 60% game. Trevor Houston, senior at Lee's Summit West High School and Austin Buchanan, 7th grader at Summit Lakes Middle School, finished second overall with a 64.17% game earning .47 silver masterpoints and Tyler Braden, 7th grader from Pleasant Lea Middle School and Brittanny James 8th grader from Summit Lakes Middle School finished 2nd E/W with a 50.83% game and picked up .22 masterpoints. This, along with the masterpoints Brittanny has won in each of the prior 2 competitions, gives Brittanny more than one masterpoint thus making her eligible for that graduating Senior Scholarship. And finally, Michael Lakner and Phil Propst from Woodland Elementary finshed 4th overall with a 57.5% game and received .27 masterpoints.
