Friday, April 17th, I attended the last UTD Chess Club meeting of the semester. I will miss the graduating seniors, pictured in this photo.  Back row (left to right): IM John Bartholomew, FM Keaton Kiewra, IM Davorin Kuljasevic, IM Marko Zivanic

Front row (left to right) GM Alejandro Ramirez, WFM Lilia Doibani. All of them (except Kuljasevic) were students in my online classes. Marko Zivanic will be around next year, though, as a Computer Science graduate student and assistant coach. He was also the winner of the Steven Grubbs memorial award and scholarship. On Facebook, I have photos of the award being presented by UTD Chess Program Director Jim Stallings.          

Another senior with graduate school plans is Lilia Doibani, who will matriculate at the Texas Tech law school this fall. The other seniors have important interviews this month, so I don't want to jinx their luck by writing about those here. 

 WFM Bayaraa Zorigt won re-election as chess club historian, in large part because of her work on the chess club archives. Now clippings and memos from the first 13 years of the chess program are organized systematically in notebooks and will be available as scans online by next year. I have photos of chess club members looking at the archives on my Facebook page.

Other officers elected for 2009-2010 are:

NM Nelson Lopez, Sports Coordinator

NM Yash Gogte, Public Relations

WFM Saheli Nath, Treasurer

Gerald Roberts, Vice President

WFM Karina Vazirova, President