CLUBS OFFER FUN SIDE TO LEARNING

Carrie Smith keeps plenty busy after school.

The 17-year-old Cape Girardeau Central High School senior is involved in Student Council, Speech and Debate, Spanish Club, National Honor Society, and Truth, a Bible group.

"I don't like not doing anything," she said one afternoon as she and other student council members tagged red and white candy canes to be delivered to students and teachers for Christmas. "I like to be involved."

"It's fun. You become friends with people you wouldn't normally meet," she noted.

"School means more to you. You are going to have more school spirit."

For Smith and other students, clubs offer a fun side to learning.

At Jackson High School, students in the JAGAR (Jackson Association of Gamers and Roleplayers) Club spend Monday afternoons playing games like Dungeons and Dragons or the Axis and Allies battle strategy game.

"I like Dungeons and Dragons because it is set in medieval times," sophomore Ray LaBelle, 16, said. "You have to have a pretty good imagination."

The club attracts as many as 30 students to the after-school games, held in a second-floor chemistry classroom.

"It's like taking a vacation once a week on Mondays," 16-year-old junior Joe Hellman said.

"It's a break from reality," said Jason Griffet, 18. The high school senior said it is a great way to relieve the pressures of life.

"You don't get in trouble for killing a giant alien," he said, a reference to Battletech, a science-fiction, role-playing game involving robots.

Club members say students learn problem-solving from such games.

Nathan Cooley, a 17-year-old senior at Jackson, is one of those students who is in almost every club.

"I was in 17 club pictures," the high-school-jacket-clad student said. "School is boring without that stuff."

Cape Central High School Principal Dan Tallent says clubs are an important part of school life.

"It breaks from the routine of the classroom work and it does make school more fun," he said.

"They get to see in an informal setting that teachers care about them and what they are doing."

Clubs are also educational. Students in Spanish Club, for example, can make use of the foreign language skills they have learned in the classroom.

Extracurricular activities also can aid students in gaining admission to college.

"Colleges love the extracurricular students," 16-year-old junior Angie Fornkohl observed.

Fornkohl is in a number of Central High School organizations ranging from French Club to Student Council, and the Red Dagger theater group to the Chamber Choir.

"It makes high school more fun to be involved in a lot of things," she said.

Tallent estimates half of the 979 students at Central High are involved in the nearly 30 clubs.

At Jackson High School, the percentage is about the same. The high school, with a student body of about 900, has more than 20 clubs.

"A lot of them deal with curriculum," Principal Vernon Huck said. Such groups include the Spanish, French and science clubs.

"We have clubs that help other people," he said. They include the "Just Say No" group, whose students deliver an anti-drug and anti-alcohol message to the school district's fifth- graders.

Huck said students learn about responsibilities, fund raising and organizational skills in high school clubs.

For students like Corey Wright, a 17-year-old senior and president of the Central High Student Council, clubs are a big part of their lives.

"I can't just sit and do nothing," he said.