On Saturday (Nov. 22nd) Whatcom County, Washington (approximate population
150,000) held their 4th annual scholastic chess championship tournament.
This particular tourney is only open to those in grades K-12 that live or
attend school in Whatcom County.

For the first time, we required pre-registration for all participants.
Despite this new restriction, we still had a record turnout with 243 players
showing up on game day. (We had approximately 270 pre-register. Several
more who desired to register had to be turned away due to our reaching the
capacity of the tournament site.)

Here are the attendance numbers for the Whatcom County Scholastic
Championships for the last 4 years:

Year # of players
2000: 121
2001: 139
2002: 221
2003: 243

Being the senior floor judge for the 3-5 grade section, I can say that,
despite the physical limitations of our location, the event ran quite
smoothly. Both kids and parents exhibited exemplary behavior. Truly an
enjoyable tournament.
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Chris Kantack
http://home.earthlink.net/~kantack/lcdchess/home.htm
(remove the "nospampls" from my email address if replying by email)