Feeling Lucky

On Friday afternoon, the usually vacant tables of the Coppell High School Commons were filled with bustling families. Kids stamped their hands with bright dobbers, and cheerleaders weaved in and out between the tables, carrying baskets of baked goods.

Suddenly, a boy shot up out of his chair, yelling the word that every person in attendance hoped to say that night.

“Bingo!” And just like that, Coppell Cheer’s annual Cheer Bingo event had begun.

The boy had just demonstrated how someone should react upon winning a game, something Coppell Middle School West teacher Stephanie Howell was surprised to find herself repeating just minutes later.

Howell, who came to Bingo night to support cheerleader Maddie Brock, won $50 early in the night.

“I’m [feeling] great,” Howell said. “I’m about 50 times better now. I just won money, that’s so exciting.”

She would not be the last winner of the night, and as the bingo board lit up with more numbers, some attendees had their eye on the bigger prizes- a MacBook Air, GoPro Hero, and Escape Room – that were up for grabs.

“I want a Macbook,” CHS Freshman Reid Robbins said. “That would be cool to win. Or a GoPro.”

Robbins had been offered tickets at his brother’s youth football game and had come last minute. He sat at a table in the far corner of the commons that was nearly full this year, a difference from prior years that senior varsity cheerleader Riley Hopper recognized.

“Every year is pretty consistant with how many people come, but I think this year has a bigger turnout than last year,” Hopper said.

Hopper’s responsibilities during the Cheer Bingo games also differed from years past. As an underclassmen, she was in charge of pizza and drinks, but as an upperclassmen, she now helps with trash and assists attendees.

Unknown to most of the audience, the woman who had worked behind the scenes to organize the night stood by the stage with her family. For CHS Cheer chairperson and Peer Professional for Special Ed Lisa Hackl, planning for the biggest cheer event of the year began months earlier.

“It’s a big event to coordinate,” Hackl said. “I have to let pizza know what they’re doing, ticket sales know what they’re doing, write up the MC script, order the bingo equipment, find people to help decorate tables, find someone to coordinate the cheerleaders and their responsibilities.”

Having parents and students help in different departments took some of the load off Hackl, but she was still in charge of something that was different from any other school fundraiser- a temporary bingo license through the state.

“There’s procedures with gambling and the state,” Hackl said. “We fill out an application and send in [money], and then just wait; we wait a long time. You just have to plan ahead and ask for it three or four months in advance.”

What made this year such a success? Hackl attributed the larger turnout to a couple of new marketing approaches the team offered this year to benefit the cheer booster.

“We did something new this year. We had online website sales,” Hackl said. “That definitely had an effect. Credit card sales [too], I think that kind of helped, we didn’t do that last year so that has eased the sale of more tickets.”

For those who look forward to playing Cheer Bingo in the years to come, it might just be your lucky day.

“We definitely will continue this going forward,” Hackl said. “It’s just a tradition, like the Lariettes and their spaghetti dinner, this is the cheerleader tradition. It’s a really fun event for the community, for people who don’t have kids at the high school, it’s brings them back.”