ASHLAND – After a trial run as a club sport last school year, bowling will be an official school sport for the 2017-2018 school year at Ashland High School.

The Ashland City Schools Board of Education approved the move Monday night at its August meeting.

“We’re here to educate children not just in book learning but in interacting with people,” board member Dr. James Wolfe said. “We’re trying to bring kids together, to see across the standard lines and to interact in a way they wouldn’t otherwise interact in a classroom.”

Ashland offered bowling as a club sport during the 2016-17 school year and saw positive results and a good response from those involved. The team practices at Luray Lanes. It will be offered this school year as a winter varsity sport and is sanctioned by the Ohio High School Athletic Association.

“I think it gives opportunities for students who may not see themselves in one of the more traditional sports to actually feel like they’re part of a team and have that pride of school spirit,” Wolfe said.

The board heard an update from Ben Spieldenner about the high school’s Lunch Bunch. Lunch Bunch started 11 years ago as a way to celebrate students’ birthdays but it has grown into much more. Spieldenner and Chuch Benway organize activities every day during all three lunch periods in the high school cafeteria. The group’s mission is to create a culture of connections.

“It has changed from not just celebrating kids but to empowering them,” Spieldenner said.

Spieldenner estimated that the Lunch Bunch has celebrated more than 11,000 birthdays, served more than 14,000 brownies, made more than 10,800 donuts, gone through more than 40 ping pong paddles and more than 1,000 ping pong balls.

“We have probably the strangest requisitions out of anybody in the district because you get everything from brownie mixes to ping pong balls,” Spieldenner said.

One area that Lunch Bunch has grown in recent years is through completing service projects.

“We try to get kids to recognize that the best way they can lead is to be a servant,” Spieldenner said.

The advisers are working to get more kids involved in projects this year. To help facilitate that, another addition to Lunch Bunch is a Leadership Academy.

“We discovered that we had a number of students that wanted to help with Lunch Bunch but they really didn’t have the tools they needed to be leaders, so we saw a need to teach these kids how to be leaders and to give them the resources to lead,” Spieldenner said.

The yearlong program will get students involved with area businesses, including internships.

“We want to allow kids to take safe risks with positive results, and that’s really a huge part of why we do what we do,” Spieldenner said. “It’s important for kids to be recognized, but it’s also important for educators to realize that they can do some really dynamic and what would seem like crazy things and have absolutely incredible results.

Board members praised the efforts of the Lunch Bunch.

“I think in 11 years, there’s no question in my mind that you’ve saved someone’s life,” board member Will Gravitt said. “High school is a very difficult time and I think the work that you do will never really truly be known.”

To find out more about Ashland’s Lunch Bunch, you can visit their website, Facebook page or Twitter page. Any businesses looking to partner with the Lunch Bunch can reach out to Spieldenner and Benway through any of those channels.

Supt. Doug Marrah updated the board on the effort to build new tennis courts in Ashland. He told the board that the city is not looking to build the new courts on school property at this time. 

During the board member comment time, Wolfe suggested the board may want to investigate the security of student and parent information, given the recent breach of the WARCOG database which affected many Ashland residents.

The board went into executive session to discuss employment matters and no action was taken following the session.