[ Home | Calendar | Results | Ratings | Clubs | Newsletter | Contacts ]

The Mississippi Chess Association has existed since at least the 1950's to organize the State Championship each year. In 1973 it became more formal with annual dues and a chess publication about five or six times a year. The organization, in return for requiring MCA membership from all state players at tournaments held be local clubs, would publicize events beforehand and print games and the crosstables from them afterwards. When active tournament directors were elected officers (Steve Perry and Jimmy Hughes) around 1985, the MCA started organizing nearly every rated tournament in the state. In 1980 the Jackson Optimist Club started holding annual chess tournaments for high school and junior high students--tournaments at the elementary level were started in 1985. The MCA designated the winner of this event as the Mississippi High School Champion until 1988 when the Optimist Club limited the scope of its annual event to students in the Greater Jackson area, the MCA started running scholastic events. The Optimist Club ran its last tournament in 1992 when the chess chairman, Warren Porter, returned to college for a degree. Dues are $5.00 a year.  We ask tournament organizers to require players from Mississippi to join or be members of the MCA in return for helping promote their events and publicizing the results afterwards. The Mississippi Scholastic Chess Organization was formed in 1996 when a number of parents of young chessplayers felt a separate organization was needed. Dr. Michael LeBlanc was it's president from then until 2003 when his youngest chessplayer graduated from high school. Today the MSCO (now renamed MSCA) is in the capable hands of Albert Hinson. In 2003 the MSCO was changed to the Mississippi Scholastic Chess Association to help align the two groups and make things more uniform and less confusing. MCA members have been invaluable to MSCA in coaching and helping with tournaments.