Bowie Independent School District Trustees were happy to meet a new canine friend at Monday’s school board meeting.
Bowie Elementary School principal Kathy Green brought her dog, Cooper, who volunteers his services two to three times a week at the school as a therapy dog to uplift spirits of both students and staff alike.
Cooper is a three-year-old Shih Tzu/Schnauzer mix who began training as an emotional support animal. He passed his canine good citizenship test in September and was certified as a therapy dog through the Bright and Beautiful Therapy dog organization.
“He’s working with kids in the morning who have separation anxiety and stuff like that and just helps calm them down a little bit,” Green said. “Some of my frequent fliers that have some self-regulation issues tend to calm down a lot faster if you promise them they get to pet the dog.”
Bowie High School principal Joanne Keeler presented a plan for her school to start an E-Sports Club, or a competitive video game team, with the goal to start competing in January after prepping all of this fall to try and get both interest and equipment up and running.
Kids would practice after school from 4:15-5 p.m. in a variety of games and genres. The competition would be through TexSEF, which is a teacher run Texas Scholastic E-sports organization.
While many in the room were a bit baffled at the prospect of kids playing more video games than they already do, several people pointed out how there are many scholarship opportunities for students in college as well as professional opportunities.
A short list of games potentially offered in the club are: Mario Kart Deluxe, Fortnite, chess, Super Smash Bros Ultimate, Street Fighter 6, League of Legends, Splatoon, Rocket League and Overwatch 2.

To read the full story, pick up a copy of the weekend edition of the Bowie News.