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St. Michael's passion for chess

The St. Michael's School Chess Club continues to grow under the guidance of staff and community volunteers.


The St. Michael's School Chess Club continues to grow under the guidance of staff and community volunteers.

Founded six years ago by teachers Ardis Wayman and Charlotte Lovequist and school division board member Eugene Fedorowich, the club has grown recently to include a record 55 students from Grades 1 to 8.

Part of the surge in interest is thanks to RCMP Constable Pierre-Hugues Lortie and his wife Narom Sing, who have been volunteering to instruct and coach the chess students since arriving in Yorkton six months ago from Quebec.

Sing and Lortie don't consider themselves chess experts, but they have become immersed in studying the game for the past several years as a way of supporting their children Isaac and Benjamin, who were heavily involved in competitive chess back home in Quebec and now in Saskatchewan.

Both Isaac, Grade 3, and Benjamin, Grade 4, are ranked first provincially in their age divisions in the Saskatchewan Scholastic Chess Association.

"When I saw that [St. Michael's] didn't have any adult with skill or knowledge of chess that wanted to get involved," says Lortie, "I just wanted to give other children the opportunity to do what my children have done for the last four years."


During noon hours two days a week, Lortie and Sing meet the St. Michael's Chess Club in the school library and coach them on strategy: Lortie with the senior students and Sing with the juniors.

The club members will soon have a chance to put what they've learned to the test. St. Michael's annual school chess tournament is on March 10. The winner of that competition will go on to the Divisional tournament, tentatively set for March 15.

"We're hoping to have one or two other schools competing," says Charlotte Lovequist.

In the long term, the St. Michael's club organizers hope to see many more schools in the area - both from the public and Catholic school divisions - start their own chess clubs.

Lortie, too, hopes to continue spreading knowledge of the game that has enriched his family's lives.

"For me, it was incredible, all that chess could bring to my boys."