At the July meeting of the Washington Community School Board attention turned toward extra curricular activities with a presentation about a new proposed bass fishing team at the high school.

Teacher Nathan Matthes and students Ben Loy and Griffen Wood made the presentation to the group. The plan would be for the team to host practices once a week, participate in tournaments, handle their own fundraising and involve youth in the area. Tournaments would take place in the fall with state and nationals being a spring event. For equipment, the goal is to acquire 3-4 boats. They have discussed sponsorships with several brands including Siebert Jigs and Kastking. With the uptick in interest for collegiate fishing programs, there is the possibility of a student earning a collegiate scholarship for fishing. Other questions that would need to be answered include transportation for equipment, insurance and school storage. School board member James Almelien shared his reaction to the idea with the group. “For me, the more that we can have for our students to participate in is what we want. We want everybody to participate. I think you covered a lot of the concerns here, because we are going to have to discuss quite a bit here about how it moves forward. For me, I would love to see you go with it.”

The interested staff and students will continue to work on finalizing more details while the district will check on details for the team with future conversations planned surrounding the idea.