After being cut as an official organization last year when the club sponsor left Palmetto, Chess Club is on its way to being reinstated.

Scrabble club incorporated Chess Club this year after sophomore Eric Dusseau approached former Scrabble Club president, senior Dylan Ricke, with a proposition to unite the clubs.

“Eric and his friends were all interested in forming a Chess Club, but they didn’t have a sponsor,” Ricke said. “So Eric was wondering if they could merge with Scrabble, which already existed and was already established.”

At the first joint meeting, club members elected the traditional officers, as well as a president for Chess Club, sophomore Alberto Hernandez, who will help coordinate events for his half of the organization. Hernandez played a key role in the effort to create a Chess Club.

“When I found out there was no Chess Club, I was saddened, and when I asked the activities office [to form a club], my request was denied,” Hernandez said. “Then I found out there was a Scrabble Club, and it didn’t make sense to me that there would be a club for scrabble and not chess.”

Right off the bat, Chess Club members outnumbered original Scrabble members; a devout Chess club following of over 30 members joined the newly merged club.

Senior Ryan Barrar, this year’s elected president of Scrabble Club, will work with Hernandez to plan club events and community service opportunities. Though both clubs share equal representation, the organization will remain under the name “Scrabble Club.”

“We’re going to do a lot of the same things but with double the manpower. For instance, we’re going to have t-shirts this year, and we’ve never had that before,” Barrar said.

The new synergy in Scrabble Club may yield interesting new activities this school year, but the number of members in the Scrabble half of the club will soon be a fraction of what it is this year. With the majority of the original Scrabble members graduating this June, the pair of clubs could be renamed  Chess Club as soon as next year.

“We’re definitely outnumbering them,” Hernandez said.  “All the things in the club constitution are based towards scrabble; we’re going to try and break off next year.”