Are you looking for a chance to meet with people who share similar interests as you? Bowie High School held its annual Club Fair to showcase the different clubs students can join. The Club Fair, this year taking place on September 1, is meant to bring students together and find others with similar interests, with a large variety of clubs. The clubs are teacher-sponsored and have their meetings before/after school or during FIT. Joining clubs is a great way to meet new people and learn more about topics that spark your interest.
“We want everybody to feel like they belong at Bowie, we want everybody to feel connected, and sometimes doing that isn’t through math or science or social studies,” Principal Mark Robinson said. “It’s through an area of interest you have that gets you to come to school. We like to take this opportunity to make sure everyone is aware of what’s happening. You don’t have to join a club, but why would you not?”
Through the club fair, students are exposed to new opportunities like the Banned Book Club, this is a club where people gather in the library every Thursday during FIT and they read/discuss banned books in Texas. The banned book club is donated all the books they read, so none of the members have to pay for copies of their current read.
“A club that got my attention at the Club Fair was the Banned Book Club,” sophomore Hannah Fellers said. “Perks of Being a Wallflower is a book I’ve been meaning to read but I recently found out it was banned because of the explicit content in it.”
Another perk for those interested in the Banned Book Club is access to the library during FIT, something that is generally limited.
“I would recommend the club to people who love to read and the library FIT is a great bonus to it. It’s a nicely organized club and you get to read interesting books that you can’t just find in the school library,” sophomore Gabriella Bochey said.
The Minecraft club got a large amount of interest at the club fair. Mitchell Navarrete, the co-owner of the Minecraft club created a cardboard outfit to look like Steve, the well-known Minecraft character from the video game. Navarrete walked around the club fair promoting his club by sharing the QR code for his Discord server, taking pictures with students, and encouraging others to visit his club.
“I wanted to help kids who don’t really have anything, like maybe there’s some introverted kids and they don’t know how to connect with other people but they can feel safe and come into Minecraft club and all have something in common,” Navarrete said. “I think it’s a good place for people to make new friends and make communities and collaborate. That’s what Minecraft is all about, building, being creative, and collaborating.”
Clubs like the Minecraft club are a free and fun place to explore and discover new people who all relate with each other over their shared love of a topic and do something fun that requires no experience.
“My freshmen year I joined the bee club and I met so many people who are now my best friends today,” sophomore Adam Botello said. “In the Bee Club, we raise bees and are able to get free honey.”
At the fair, the Bee Club was offering honey samples for students curious about joining. Bowie has a diverse group of clubs that are always looking for new members. The Club Fair is a chance to give students the opportunity to join extracurricular activities that they may be interested in.
“We want everyone to feel like they belong at Bowie, we want everyone to feel connected,” Robinson said. “Sometimes doing that isn’t through math, English, science, or social studies, it’s through doing an extracurricular program, it’s through an area of interest that you have that gets you to come to school, it may be one of the clubs.”
