CBS '60 Minutes' Talks Chess (26 Mar 2017)

The weekly USA television show, 60 Minutes, features a chess story tonight.

Kids fight stereotypes using chess in rural Mississippi - "Grade-school chess teams from Franklin County, Mississippi, blow past stereotypes about who can play chess and win national recognition."

Here's a brief overview of the 60 Minutes feature:

Jeff Bulington was new in town. He’d recently arrived from Memphis on a mission to teach chess to the children of Franklin County, Mississippi, when a man in an SUV spotted him. The man stopped the car in the middle of the street, got out, and approached Bulington, saying “I know everyone in this town, and I don’t know you.” Bulington explained who he was, and the man responded, “Oh, I’m the mayor,” before returning to his car and driving off.

That’s life in a county of only 7,000 people.

“Franklin Country is one of those places where, if you’re an out-of-towner, you’re going to be spotted pretty quickly,” says 60 Minutes producer Laura Dodd. She co-produced this week’s 60 Minutes story about what happened after Bulington arrived — and the impact he’s had on the community. ... A year-and-a-half later, Bulington, or “Dr. B” as he’s known in town, is now teaching hundreds of Franklin County kids, showing them so much more than chess.

More info:

Why chess kids put on a poker face (video + text)

Transcript of the episode (+ video intro)