Jennifer Hammond eyes the board, swings her arm forward and lets loose of the light brown beanbag she is holding. It flies 30 feet across the Herff Elementary School gym floor, striking the cornhole board, sliding up and through the hole in the top of the board.
Hammond, Herff’s principal, throws her arms high in celebration as Travis Clark, the school’s physical education instructor, lines up his next shot.
Hammond and Clark engaged in the first of what will be many cornhole matches at Herff, recipient Wednesday of a set of customized cornhole boards, courtesy of the Texas Hill Country Cornhole League.
Keven London, a member of the league, delivered two of the handmade customized boards to the school Wednesday.
“I was talking with Coach Clark about it, and he expressed an interest,” said London, whose two children attend Herff.
“I was talking to him about the educational benefits of it, helping kids with numbers, math, socialization and functionality skills,” London said. “Coach believed in that, I got with Principal Hammond ... so we wanted to go ahead and donate these custom board to them.”
Cornhole involves tossing beanbags over a set distance toward boards, set at an angle. A hole is cut in the board, toward the top — a beanbag tossed through the hole earns three points for that person’s team. Any other bags that land on the 2-foot by 4-foot board earn 1 point.
“We want to get a set of boards into every Boerne ISD school if we possibly can,” London said. “With the help of local support of business owners, we want to have the mission, once we hit all Boerne schools, to go out to all of Texas.”
Hammond, in her second year as Herff principal, said she had no qualm with the introduction of cornhole to the school and to Clark’s PE curriculum.
“I love the community involvement that Herff is starting to see, getting a lot more community members coming out and becoming involved,” she said. “And these board are beautiful, they did a great job on the logo.”
London relied on Jason Robinson, a hobbyist who’d made a handful of board for friends and family outings, for the board handiwork.
“I was looking to see what sort of market there was for custom-made boards here in Boerne,” Robinson said. Material, Robinson said, “is just a little more than a couple hundred dollars.” Combined with the 12 to 15 manhours needed to assemble the 2-foot by 4-foot boards, the cost can be several hundred dollars before delivery. “But it’s absolutely a labor of love,” Robinson added.
London turned to Randy Stumm, of CuStumm Design and Tees, to duplicate the Herff school logo onto the boards.
Once the boards were finished and the logos embossed, it was time for delivery and use. Clark talked about how he plans to incorporate the Herff boards into the curriculum.
“I really like the fact that this is cross-curricular,” Clark said. “I really like giving kids the opportunity to explore things outside of your traditional sports.”
He said the simplicity of the sport — to throw a beanbag through a hole — appeals to all ages.
“ It’s great for our kinderkids, our littles, and then working the math in and the scoring in, as they get a little bit older,” Clark said.
Both Clark and London spoke of expanding cornhole at Herff once the need and desire for the sport kicks in, and once community and business support for local cornhole leagues develops.
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