Hopwood Middle School students, staff and principal pose with SEDA and Pacific Amusement Inc. staff who donated dart boards to the school.
Hopwood teacher Victor Cabrera, left, and Principal Victorino Borja with Rowena Cook and Ivan Sales.
ON Friday, Sept. 29, Pacific Amusement Inc., which oversees the Saipan Electronic Dart Association, donated $990 worth of dart equipment to Hopwood Middle School’s newly formed dart club.
Ivan Sales, the league secretary for SEDA, said Pacific Amusement handed over two Gran Board electronic dart boards worth $320 each, as well as two stands for mounting the boards, each valued at $110.
Sales said Pacific Amusement also donated 50 soft tip darts valued at $2 per dart, and $30 worth of replacement tips.
“We’re here at the request of…Hopwood because they asked if we can support them in having a stand board,” Sales said. “We discussed it with our boss, and they were happy to help.”
Pacific Amusement General Manager Jim Gebhard said he hopes schools in the Marianas begin interscholastic dart competitions.
Sales was present along with Rowena Cook, Pacific Amusement secretary, to hand over the equipment to Hopwood Middle School students, Principal Victorino Borja, and Victor Cabrera, classroom teacher and dart club advisor.
Cabrera said he would like to prepare his students to enter the world of interscholastic competitive darts.
He said he wants to invite a middle school dart club on Guam to Saipan, adding that he would also like his students to compete off island.
“Even in the United States, I believe there are youth leagues where high school and middle school students have competitions. And we’d like to be a part of that,” Cabrera said.
He said there are about 52 students enrolled in the dart club at Hopwood Middle School, and that number continues to grow.
He said for now, while there is no opportunity to compete against other middle schools on Saipan, practices will occur on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Fridays.
Cabrera will evaluate his club members’ abilities and then separate students by skill level, much like adults in the SEDA league are separated by skill level into Masters, A, B, and C divisions.
He said for now, the dart boards will only be made available to dart club members, but they could also be used to incentivize positive behavior on campus.
Cabrera anticipates hosting dart tournaments on campus in the future.
He said having darts on campus is an additional way to highlight student talent.
“Not everybody is able to play basketball, volleyball and all the other sports, right? So this gives students another opportunity to compete,” Cabrera said. “And it’s a fun competition. It’s a competition of skill and talent on a different level.”
Cabrera expressed much appreciation to SEDA and Pacific Amusement.
“They were very, very happy to help,” he said. “They called us back the following day and said, look, we want to sit down, we want to do this. We want to get the kids involved. And they’re the ones that said that they would like to make a contribution.”
School Principal Borja said students must behave well and maintain good standing in classes in order to be allowed to remain in the club.
