`CLOSE-KNIT' VOLLEYBALL CLUB IS ABOUT FRIENDSHIP

The club meets each Tuesday for 16 weeks during the school year at R.O. Hawkins Junior High gym. Debbie Yancey, far left, referees the games, as she has for nearly 20 years.

A member of the Adult Women's Volleyball Club in Jackson returns a serve.

The women say the games are a good way to get exercise as well as maintain lasting friendships.

Debbie Yancey returns a ball. The women play for about two hours each week, laughing and joking throughout most of the game.

The Adult Women's Volleyball Club is more than just women playing volleyball -- in fact, that's only a small fragment of it.

"It's about friendship," explains Debbie Yancey, who has sponsored the club for most of its 20-year run. "We've grown together and been through a lot."

Marriages, babies, grandbabies, death, divorce -- the women have shared it all. Seldom does a week go by that one of the ladies doesn't bring pictures of a child or grandchild.

The women discuss work, home-life and anything else that friends talk about.

"This is what it's about," Yancey said, holding up a picture of a player's grandchildren that someone brought last week.

Yancey, a 24-year teacher at R.O. Hawkins Junior High, volunteered for the job about 18 years ago, two years after the club was formed.

"We're all real close," said Gayle Leimbach, who came to the first volleyball game 20 years ago and has never missed a session. "We've become a real close-knit group.

"We share our problems and our feelings. We laugh a lot and have a good time."

And all who participate agree that the games provide more than exercise.

"It gives us a chance to get away from the kids for a little while and have a good time," Leimbach said.

Brenda Hanners of Jackson has been playing for six years and she thinks the game is a good stress reliever.

"I work at a very stressful job and for two hours one night a week I can forget my job and just have fun," she said.

But she agrees that the friendships that she has formed is what has given the club meaning.

Sometimes new members do join, but Hanners says the majority of the people have been playing a long time and this has given her the opportunity to really get to know them.

"We even go out together outside of volleyball, we're all just good friends."

While most of the players are from Jackson and Cape, the club has women traveling from as far north as Oak Ridge and as far south as Scott City to play.

And the women represent a wide variety of professions. Secretaries, dental hygienist, teachers, farmers, housewives -- Yancey said there is a "hodge podge" of people.

The group meets for 16 weeks during the school year, eight weeks in fall and eight in the spring, playing for about two hours every Tuesday night. They divide the women into teams and they play for fun, never getting too competitive.

The game almost seems secondary to the women.

"It doesn't matter to us if you can play or not," Hanners said. "We don't care."

What do the players' families think?

"They're not thrilled, but that's too bad," one lady jokingly yells from the court.

"Larry says to go play volleyball and get my frustrations out," Leimbach said.

One player's children came to watch one time and told their mother she wasn't playing right.

Leimbach said the closeness of the group is the main reason the club has persevered for two decades.

"The fact that we're such good friends is part of the appeal," she said. "The people are all good family-oriented people. We know a lot about each other.

"It's like we're all a big family."