| Jay L. Simonson TROTS | I am a 61 year old college graduate and US Army veteran. I attended Idaho State University and accepted my Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC) commission when I graduated in 1975. I was born in Idaho and l lived here until I went into the Army. Five Years after getting out of the Army in 1987, I moved back. A friend taught me how to play chess when we were 12. I (we) thought that the Queen could move like the knight, didn’t know anything about En Passant or castling and thought that the only promotion possible was to a Queen. I played that way for about a year before I found out I really knew nothing about chess. I bought 3 books about chess which I still have today. When I got married, I taught my wife how to play chess (she never did like it & hasn’t changed her opinion). As the kids came along (I have 9), I taught each one how to play chess. The 5 girls aren’t much interested and don’t like it. Three of the 4 boys still play occasionally, usually against each other or against me when they come home for holidays (although this Christmas they all managed to escape without the obligatory chess beating I usually deliver). Most of the 14 grand children are excited to play chess with Grandpa, but only a few have learned to play the real rules. My very first tournament chess game was at the Idaho Closed Chess Championships in February 2001. In 2002, I became Secretary/Treasurer of the Idaho Chess Association (ICA) and have since been a Tournament Director, Vice President, President, and Trustee for Tournament Direction. I am still a TD and am currently Vice President again. Dick Vandenburg introduced me to Correspondence Chess in 2001 when I played board 10 for the Idaho Mountaineers in the Correspondence Chess League of America (CCLA) Team Championships. I won the CCLA North American Class E championship in 2003 and the Class D championship in 2005. I am currently playing in 2 sections of the 2007 Class D Championship, one section of the Team Championships, and one Web Server section, for a total of 26 games (at the start) against 18 different opponents. I guess you could say with some confidence that I like chess! |
| Jeffrey T. Roland ADACT | My name is Jeff Roland. I am 45 years old and am a native of Boise, Idaho. I began playing chess in 1978 initially only with a friend in High School. Later, I expanded my opponents to include other people and eventually, I went to my first Boise Chess Club meeting in March, 1980 where both my friend and I were considered “fresh meat”. I quickly got hooked on chess and have played in over-the-board tournaments actively ever since. I am the current Idaho Chess Association (ICA) President and have been elected to positions of chess leadership on many occasions since 1984. I have devoted myself to organizing events, directing events, playing in events, and studying games. I am also the web master of the Idaho Chess Association web site, www.idahochessassociation.org. I played correspondence chess too, playing in the 1981 CCLA US Junior Championship and several CCLA Team Tournaments for the Idaho Mountaineers team. I’ve also played chess for other organizations, like Northwest Postal Chess (NWPC), and United States Chess Federation (USCF). I don’t even know if those organizations still have postal chess tournaments. I have a deep and sincere passion and enjoyment of chess. I play in every event I can, and I do my best to support and encourage others too. For me, chess is the ultimate ice breaker in making new friends. I love it when my opponents enjoy the game… and they almost always do! Chess is what’s happening! I love it. To me, chess is not about winning. It’s about playing. I look forward to this event. It doesn’t matter to me which team wins. What matters to me is that we all play, that we all share this fantastic sporting experience, and that we all have a great time and play great chess! Participation is what it’s about for me. I want to be a part of this experience and build memories and make friends, all the while challenging myself and improving my game. And if my opponent plays the best game of his life and beats me beautifully and brilliantly, then I want to be part of that too. |
| Richard S. Vandenburg ADACT | I was born on January 19, 1930 and will have my 78th birthday two weeks from today (January 5, 2008). I have lived in Boise all my life, except four years out of state attending the last two years of college and two years of graduate school. I learned how to play chess in high school from a family friend and business acquaintance of my father, C.H. (Charley) Stewart, who was the best player in Idaho after he arrived in Boise in the late teens. When a senior in high school (1947), I entered what I remember was the first official state championship, which was won by Charley Stewart. I didn't play much tournament chess during my two years at Boise Junior College, and hardly at all the two years after at Whitman College in Walla Walla, WA. Then I attended graduate business school at Stanford University in Palo Also, CA for two years, playing almost no over-the-board chess. While there, in 1951, I joined CCLA and Chess Review, starting my "career" in correspondence chess. I eventually dropped out of Chess Review before it combined with the US Chess Federation and became the latter group's correspondence division. I have been a continous CCLA member for some 57 years now, possibly longer than any other person. CCLA was officially founded in 1909, so I joined in its 42nd year. During the latter 2/3 of the 1950s, the 1960s and the early 2/3 of the 1970s, I played quite a little o-t-b chess, winning the Idaho title six times, putting out an Idaho Chess Quarterly for 10 years, and being the chief tournament director in the state. My highest o-t-b rating was 2117 and I topped out in CCLA at 2165. I entered most of the state championship events during my 20+ years of o-t-b competitive play, but not every one because I had couple of other hobbies, one of which was directing and being head coach for the nearby Bogus Basin Ski Area Mitey Mite Ski Racing Team for a total of 23 years (for kids 12 years of age and under). We had a lot of fun, the kids learned, and Bogus Basin had four Olympians from the 1960s through the 1980s. People used to travel a lot to chess tournaments and in the 1960s we held our best-ever Idaho Open, which attracted 72 players including Victor Pupols, Viesturs Seglins and Jim McCormick from Seattle, Ben Greenwald from Utah and Peter Lapikan from Montana, all Masters or near Masters. It was quite an event in which I both played and directed. It seems I have always worked with kids in a mostly volunteer capacity. I started the Idaho Scholastic Chess program in 1980 and ran it for a dozen years or so. After that, while it was operated by two or three others, I helped direct scholastic tournaments for the Gem State Chess Assn. I am now in my 3rd year back at the helm of Idaho Scholastics. Things are picking up and last year we had 393 entrants in the scholatic state championship, which is pretty good for a large-area state with only 1.25 million inhabitants. In CCLA, I have pretty much held every position available from president ( 10 years total), vice president, board member, membership director, nominating committee chairman, and now secretary -treasurer. In the 1970s, I set up a meeting in San Francisco, along with USCF's annual business meeting, during which we started what is now ICCF-US. These days, I am retired from running my own orchard and fruit packing operation and keep very busy with Idaho scholastic chess, including directing an elementary school chess club in Boise, plus my work with CCLA. I recruited six teams for CCLA's 15th National Team Championship and am captain of a 55 board match between the USA and Sweden. Two more matches are upcoming in February and March, with the UK and Spain. |
| Jesse Benjamin Brent TROTS | I am currently 20 years old and living in Moscow, Idaho. I am attending the University of Idaho, majoring in computer science and social dance. I've been playing chess for about 11 years, competitively for 8. In the previous years, I've took a few titles, played in the Denker, World Open, US Open and others., Also headed one of the stronger teams in Idaho while in high school. It's unfortunate that there isn't a lot of chess going on up here. I'm really looking forward to playing more matches in person. |
