’ . . . A Creative Response to Tough Times in Education’ : Boosters Turn to Bingo to Offer School Extras

As the 78-member Dana Hills High marching band played the fanfare from “Rocky,” the 45-member football team dashed onto the playing field of the school’s 3,300-seat stadium. Few of the enthusiastic fans at this recent home game probably were aware that the stadium, along with the band’s uniforms and many of its instruments, had been purchased with $250,000 raised at the south Orange County school’s Saturday night bingo games.

At its Nov. 1 home game, Los Angeles County’s Rowland High School formally dedicated its new $685,000, 7,500-seat football stadium with an extravagant opening ceremony. The appearance of the 45-member varsity squad, suited up in new uniforms, was heralded in song by the 150-member choir of the high school located in Rowland Heights in the southeast San Gabriel Valley. The choir, attired in new robes, stood on a new portable stage, their voices reaching every inch of the stadium thanks to a new state-of-the-art sound system. Musical accompaniment was provided by the 135-member band and drill team; they, too, were sporting new uniforms.

Millions From the Game

The money to pay for all this came almost solely from what Rowland High had raised by holding Monday night bingo games in its gym.

Stadiums, uniforms and more have been made possible, according to school bingo organizers, by the millions of dollars Southern California public high schools and their booster clubs have raised in recent years by sponsoring weekly bingo games, usually on campus.

No exact dollar figure is available. School bingo chairmen such as Rowland High’s Jim MacCormick willingly disclose only partial financial data, such as the fact that the $685,000 spent on the stadium represents just a third of the money raised during the four years of bingo games at the Los Angeles County high school.

However, he declined to disclose the school’s total net income from bingo. “We prefer not to give out figures like that,” MacCormick said without elaboration. More forthcoming were bingo officials at Dana Hills High, where it was indicated that Orange County’s first public high school bingo games began seven years ago. Since then, about $250,000 has been raised for the school’s band and athletic teams, according to Dr. Arthur Smith, a dentist who serves as the school’s bingo chairman.

A somewhat smaller sum has been raised by the Cypress High School Athletic Booster Club since its sponsorship of bingo began four years ago, bingo chairman Bill Hannah said.

Whatever the precise figures are, both school bingo chairmen and publishers of the Bingo Bugle tabloids that chronicle the phenomenon agree that the sums are large. Moreover, they say the number of public high schools sponsoring bingo has grown rapidly in the last two years.

“The average net annual income of these games is $50,000,” said Don Carrier, co-publisher of the Bingo Bugle of Los Angeles County. It bills itself as “Los Angeles’ largest bingo paper” and has a free circulation of 45,000.

The Los Angeles publication is one of a chain of 12 free tabloids in California that cover bingo news and are chock full of ads by game promoters. Another 18 of these publications cover other parts of the country, according to Bingo Bugle spokesmen.

A cursory look at Bingo Bugle’s monthly bingo calendars shows that eight of the Southern California public high schools now offering weekly bingo are in Orange County, 10 are in Los Angeles County, three in San Diego County, seven in Ventura County and one in Santa Barbara County.

“You go to these games, and you’re blown away by the activity and money flowing through,” said Dave Hepburn, recalling the numerous high school bingo games he visited in preparation for setting up bingo at Huntington Beach’s Edison High six months ago.

“I’d never played bingo in my life, nor had anyone on the board (of directors of the Edison booster club),” explained Hepburn, a hard-nosed businessman who is president of a Huntington Beach sales agency. “I wanted to find out if there really was any money in bingo, or whether it was just hype.”

How have tens of thousands of conventional, middle-class parents found themselves in the bingo business? “It’s not really gambling,” insisted one mother of an Edison High student, who asked that her name not be used.

Most of them had never played bingo but are used to volunteering a lot of time to the athletic, academic and music booster clubs that support their youngsters’ extracurricular activities.

“School districts are strapped for money right now,” explained Edison Assistant Principal Brian Garland, who brings a unique perspective to the issue because he also is a member of the separate Huntington Beach City School Board that administers elementary and intermediate schools. “I think this is a creative response to tough times in education.”

Proposition 13, passed by the state’s voters in 1978, imposed school budgetary constraints, which Edison’s Hepburn said “have caused all booster clubs to supply more things--athletic and band uniforms, music instruments, transportation for extracurricular activities and extra study materials, especially for the library.”

“These costs to the booster clubs keep rising,” continued Hepburn, who last year was president of the football booster club. “Parents found themselves doing a lot of fund raising: selling candy (and holding) car washes, garage sales and booster club membership drives.”

‘Little in Return’

“Parents felt really burdened by all this fund raising. You felt frustrated because you got so little in return for the time and effort you put in,” Hepburn added.

Although one or two public high schools in Southern California began sponsoring bingo games shortly after the 1978 passage of Proposition 13, school bingo chairmen and Bingo Bugle publishers say the rapid growth of the game on campuses did not begin until more recently as post-Proposition 13 funding solutions unraveled.

In April, 1984, the California Supreme Court ruled that public schools could not impose special fees on students who participate in extracurricular activities. These fees had been imposed by schools as a means of raising revenue after passage of Proposition 13.

In the year after this court ruling, several Orange County public schools began sponsoring bingo games: Los Alamitos High School band, Westminster High School, University High Boosters and Irvine High School Boosters.

“Before Proposition 13, there was some funding of extracurricular activities by school boards, and there usually was a fee charged each participating student,” recalled Tom Davies, a manufacturer of veterinary pharmaceuticals who serves as University High’s bingo chairman.

“We all know what Proposition 13 did to the schools,” Davies said in discussing the plight faced by his Irvine high school. “Then, the Supreme Court ruled fees were illegal. We felt we were being precluded from doing effective fund raising. We were forced to turn to bingo in a desperate effort to save what was left of our sports, band and other extracurricular programs.”

Average of $50,000

Most Orange County high schools raise on average an impressive $50,000 annually from bingo after expenses, those surveyed said. In contrast, they previously raised $5,000 to $10,000 through candy sales, cake sales, car washes and booster club membership drives.

But no Orange County bingo game has paralleled the running start Edison got off to when it launched its Monday night games last May, John Healy said. As publisher of the 20,000 free-circulation Orange County Bingo Bugle, Healy closely monitors public high school bingo trends.

In a six months Edison raised $55,000, bingo chairman Hepburn said. This is double what was projected for the first 12 months of Edison bingo, based on the experience Hepburn said other schools have reported. Now, Hepburn thinks it is feasible that Edison might raise more than $100,000 during its first year, which would be an Orange County record.

So successful has Edison bingo been that the 18 booster clubs that initially provided the roughly 20 volunteers necessary to man the Monday night games have recently been joined by another five booster clubs. Hepburn gleefully pointed out that these new booster clubs had been formed since May, almost solely in order to be eligible for a cut of the bingo earnings.

High school bingo games usually have required approval by city councils or school boards. However, such approval is obtained with relative ease. The Placentia Unified School District Board is the only governing body on record in Orange County to have voted down a recent bid for school-sponsored bingo.

Cited Ethics, Values

The Placentia board rejected a bingo bid by booster clubs at its March, 1984, board meeting. A school spokeswoman said it decided bingo “would be inconsistent with the ethics and values attached to education.

“The trustees expressed conclusively that bingo, considered a game of chance, may detract from the valuable lesson that hard work results in achievement,” school district spokeswoman Donna Bylund said.

Edison’s Hepburn acknowledged that “a few people have a poor perception of bingo. They see things as not being quite right having bingo games on publicly funded property. They see it as gambling, not fund raising for the school.

“But I don’t see where they have much of an argument since a third of the money from the California lottery, which was approved by the voters, will be spent on public education.”

Edison Principal Jack Kennedy added: “Oh sure, there was some criticism when bingo was first proposed. Before this group (the Charger Booster Club of Edison High School Inc., the nonprofit foundation which legally operates the game) could get approval to play bingo at Edison, it had to get the approval of each booster club.

“I sat in on a lot of these meetings, and there were some parents who said: ‘No, there shouldn’t be bingo at Edison because it (is) gambling.’ There were some lively discussions, and the vote wasn’t unanimous in every booster club.”

Though Kennedy believes the dispute has left “no hard feelings,” he pointed out that with bingo’s overwhelming financial success, the game’s opponents have muted their criticisms. Most bingo opponents declined requests, conveyed through Kennedy, to be interviewed.

‘Let the Matter Drop’

Kennedy ventured the opinion that “because almost everybody is so pleased with the funds that’ve been raised so far, those against bingo probably think people will turn against them if they express their opposition to it. . . . Also, they don’t begrudge the success bingo has had, so I guess they’d rather just let the matter drop.”

One of the few couples willing to express public opposition to bingo is Jean and Jim Wheeler of Huntington Beach. “I don’t feel bingo should be played at Edison because it’s a form of gambling,” said Jean, a homemaker who has a daughter in the junior class.

“By playing bingo on campus, you’re telling students that gambling is an appropriate form of behavior--that you can get something for nothing,” she added.

Echoing Jean’s views, Jim said: “These bingo players are not the kind of people you have over for a nice game of bingo on a Saturday night in your living room for a bit of recreation. They’re serious gamblers.”

Jim, an English and journalism teacher at Edison since the school opened 17 years ago, said he and other opponents lost the battle against bingo “because it generates a lot of money. It’s doing better than we had been told to expect. You can’t make this much money this fast ($55,000 in six months) from car washes and bake sales.”

Still Oppose Game

Although bingo money has benefited the four booster clubs that he and his wife belong to, Jim still opposes the game. “Maybe I’ve got the Puritan work ethic too ingrained in me, but I think that the kids are being cheated in character development when they see that bingo allows you to get things without earning them.

“I don’t think either the kids or the parents have thought enough about the fact that bingo, gambling, allows you to take from someone else something that’s not yours. For every winner, there’s a loser, a lot of losers.”

However, Charger Booster Club board member Sue Koch pointed out that bingo has not completely replaced other fund-raising efforts. “Bingo has allowed us to bring more balance to our fund-raising efforts,” said Koch, who along with her husband, Jack, is a member of two other booster clubs which support the extracurricular activities of their two daughters at Edison.

Echoing a widely heard view, Koch said: “The parents and kids are tired of this constant fund-raising. It starts in youth groups and elementary school and continues through junior and high school.

“The kids seem to be going door to door in the neighborhood year-round. You can impose on the good will of your neighbors only so far. Besides, is it really safe in today’s society to send a child door to door selling things?”

Limited in Time

Added Koch, an Anaheim elementary school teacher: “With both parents working in most families today and being limited in their time commitments, you can’t count on parents the way you once could to pick up the slack when these fund-raising drives run into problems.

“My daughters participate in Model United Nations (in which high school teams debate international issues). Model U.N. teams do a lot of traveling, which is very expensive. Even with a two-income family, how often can you expect parents to dip into their pockets to pay for their kids’ trips to Sacramento--or Washington?”

Bingo supporters, moreover, emphasize that players must be 18 or older to play, and many schools have adopted policies that prohibit their own students of legal age from playing and also bar them from even being present while the games are in progress.

On a recent Monday night, 290 people filled the brightly lit Edison High School cafeteria to capacity. “We’re getting a permit from the Fire Department so we can expand,” Hepburn said. He had started working non-stop on setting up that night’s bingo game three hours before the doors opened at 5:30 p.m. and was there well after the last game ended at 10:30 that night.

Players paid a sliding-scale admission fee starting at $15 for the chance of winning one of the 25 games paying $250 each that were played that night. Some had been standing outside or sitting in their cars for one to two hours before the 5:30 p.m. door-opening in order to be assured of getting their favorite seats and having time to set up trinkets. Hepburn said that many believe this will bring them good fortune.

That Winning Number

Hunched over six or more disposable bingo cards, eyes rapidly scanning the cards, magic markers poised in hands to mark off numbers when called, participants anxiously awaited hearing the fateful number which would make them a winner.

During the brief interludes between games, winners were verified and paid off in crisp $20 bills. Many of the other players purchased “pull tab” cards and then busied themselves snapping out pull-tab cutouts. The pull-tab players were looking for three diamonds in a row to appear on the card, worth $200 in prize money.

The “intermission” in what appeared to be a five-hour, eye-hand-coordination endurance test was the drawing for the main door prize--a 20-inch, remote-controlled, color television set.

Hepburn said $12,500 in prize money was handed out nightly. Players interviewed, almost all of whom were bingo aficionados well-versed about the other games on the bingo circuit, indicated that Edison was generous with its prize money.

Therefore, they felt their chances of winning something were pretty good. If not that night, maybe the next time. Since many played bingo three or more times weekly, how could their lucky number not come up ultimately, they reasoned.

Some players have never missed any of the more than 25 games Edison has conducted since opening its doors last May. Edison bingo, at the request of its patrons, operates 51 weeks out of the year, closing down only on Christmas week. Fully 50% to 80% of the players on any given night are repeat customers, Hepburn said.

Free Shuttle Service

To make sure these customers keep coming back, Hepburn has instituted such amenities as free shuttle service for the 300 feet from the cafeteria to the parking lot and separate rooms for smokers and nonsmokers.

Among these repeat customers on a recent Monday night was Margaret McCleeland, a retired Huntington Beach restaurant supervisor. She also was one of the evening’s winners.

After one of the volunteer parents counted out $250 in cash under McCleeland’s gleeful gaze and placed the money into a crisp new envelope, McCleeland let several of the $20 bills dangle invitingly from the envelope to attract the interest of onlookers. She then deftly tucked the envelope beneath her handbag on the table and crowed: “This is the third time I’ve won!”

McCleeland, who plays bingo three times a week, said she kept returning to the Edison Monday games because the volunteer parents were “so kind and courteous” as they paid out the maximum $250 winnings per game allowed by law.

Another three-time, $250 winner that night was Hildie Mattson. “I just love it here because it’s so clean; they come around all the time to pick up the trash before it makes a mess,” said the Huntington Beach retiree.

“They have a lot of people to wait on you, whether you want more free popcorn or want to buy more pull tabs. And it’s close to my house.” Mattson’s only mild criticism was that she wished the legal limit on the size of prizes could be raised, adding that she had won $1,000 two weeks ago during one of her weekly jaunts on a chartered bus to play bingo at an Indian reservation.

A $450 Winner

Regular Julie Cardoss was elated that evening because she not only had won a $250 bingo game, but she had also won another $200 playing pull tabs.

Don McPherson, 30, had never played bingo before, but after a few pointers from his sister, Betty Wilson, 35, who is a bingo devotee, McPherson walked away with $250 in winnings.

Crowds such as this one caused Edison to make so much in its first 16 weeks of operation that it decided to make an early distribution of money on hand, Hepburn said. So, $29,200 was given to 18 participating booster clubs, using a formula based on need and the number of volunteers each booster club had provided to run the weekly bingo games, Hepburn said.

The Academic Booster Club used more than $1,000 to buy audiovisual equipment for the library, Hepburn said. A similar sum will be spent by the girls’ soccer team to buy an automatic soccer ball dispensing machine, Hepburn added.

A similar pattern of bingo money use has been set at other high schools. The year-old Los Alamitos High School Band bingo game has set aside some of the game’s proceeds to pay half the $35,000 cost of the band’s new uniforms, bingo chairman Lloyd Orr said.

Ventura County’s Royal High School has used some of the money it has raised during its four years of operation to finance six $1,000 academic college scholarships and three athletic scholarships. The Simi Valley high school’s bingo proceeds have also gone to help purchase new band uniforms, new musical instruments and to defray transportation costs of extracurricular activities.

Computerized Timer

At Edison, the Boys’ and Girls’ Aquatics booster clubs will be pooling their allotments this spring to install a much-needed $14,000, Olympic-caliber, computerized pool timer for swimmers, Hepburn said.

“We would not be getting this without bingo because of the large amount of money involved,” said Pauline Bachakes, coach of the 50-member girls’ swim team; she also is the Edison girls’ athletic director.

“It would take the girls’ and boys’ aquatic teams seven years of car washes, candy sales and garage sales to come up with this kind of money,” continued Bachakes.”Besides, you would never be able to keep the kids, or their parents, interested in such a long fund-raising drive because the computerized pool timer wouldn’t be installed until years after they graduated.”