Patch Whiz Kids: East Middle School Chess Champs

Name: Mandy Lu, 12, of Canton; Kyle Webster, 13, of Plymouth; Johnny Young, 13, of Canton and Alan Sun, 12, of Canton.

School:

Accomplishment: This team of seventh- and eighth-graders became the state junior high chess champions Feb. 26 at the 2011 Michigan Scholastic Junior High Chess Championship at Oakland University.

Key to awesomeness: All four students have been on the chess team for at least two years, and they take the game seriously. Mandy, Johnny and Alan study chess under chess teacher Jennifer Skidmore, who is based in Ann Arbor, and Kyle studies under Ray Garrison, another Ann Arbor-based chess instructor.

Of all the students, Kyle has the most experience. He said his father, Bruce Webster, started playing chess with him when Kyle was just 3 years old.

"At first, he would take his pieces off the board so I would have more of an advantage," Kyle said. "Eventually, I started winning, and I just got more interested from there."

It was Kyle who introduced Johnny to chess when the two were third-grade classmates at in Canton.

Johnny immediately took to it.

"It just seemed interesting," Johnny said. "I like strategy games and calculating things."

Mandy, one of the two seventh-graders on the team, said she was just introduced to the world of chess two years ago.

"Someone's mom told my mom about it," Mandy said. "I went to a club and I liked it right away. I like to win."

Alan, the other seventh-grader, said he also really got into chess more recently, although he said his sister taught him some basics when he was "really little."

Do you know a special young person in the community who deserves a round of applause because he volunteers instead of playing video games after school? Or maybe your daughter's science club is trying to challenge the way we think about the energy crisis. Or maybe your son's lacrosse team won its first game in three years. Everyone deserves a little attention, and we want to tell these stories.

So e-mail your Whiz Kid nominations to Editor Jessica Nunez at Jessica.Nunez@patch.com. Please include the name, age, school, achievement and key to awesomeness, as well as a photo. Then come back every Wednesday for our Whiz Kid spotlight; you never know who will be up next.