Cliff Rudy, left, and Bob  Walker from the Los Alamos Duplicate Bridge Club play Bridge with  Cory Liechty, left, and Rebekah Lockhart, both 5th graders at Pinon Elementary School. Courtesy photo

Staff Report

Members of the Los Alamos Duplicate Bridge Club are offering free bridge lessons for students in Grades 4-12. These lessons are also being sponsored by the County Recreation Department.

Classes for kids in Grades 4-7 are being held at the White Rock Library 10:45 a.m. to noon Thursdays. Classes for students in grades 7-12 are being offered 1:30-3 p.m. Fridays in the downstairs conference room at the Betty Ehart Senior Center.

These classes will take place once a week until further notice. Note, there will be no class Thursday July 4 or Friday July 26 since the facilities are not available on those days. Feel free to bring older or younger siblings and friends or a parent who wants to learn to play with you.

Students need not have previous experience in order to join these lessons. Bring your friends and come ready to have a fun and challenging experience learning the rules of the game of Bridge and getting practice playing. Bridge is a fun card game played with four people and is generally accepted as the most popular card game in the world.

It can be played as a social game with friends and family or as a competitive game in a local Duplicate Bridge Club or at local, regional, national or international tournaments. Playing Bridge is a good exercise for your brain and will help kids develop problem solving skills. It is also a great way to improve partnership communication skills and meet new people, but most of all kids learn Bridge to have a good time. It is a game for people of all ages and played across the world.

Lessons have been offered during this school year at Pinon Elementary School and have been very popular.

“We are grateful to Principal Jill Gonzales and all of her staff for helping us get this program started,” said Earle Marie Hanson of the Los Alamos Duplicate Bridge Club. “Several students remarked that the lessons were the highlight of their school week.”

The summer lessons will offer an introduction to Bridge and hopefully spark the interest and enthusiasm of the students to study and play on their own and to take additional lessons in the future. For more information, contact Earle Marie Hanson at (505) 672-9576.