Enlisted in the United States Navy, Andrew Peraino (12) tested and scored in the 94th percentile on his ASVAB, a near perfect score, according to Peranio.

By having such a high score on the test, he is qualified for every one of the estimated 85 jobs in the US Navy. 

“I auto-qualified for the highest ranking job in the Navy, which is the nuclear engineering program,” Peraino said.  “If I sign up for six to eight years, they’ll give me a sign on bonus for $110,000, assuming I make it all of the way through the schooling and also go for the officer program. So that’s what I’ll be going for.”

Through that program, Peraino will be in school for two to three years, which earns college credits and is similar to attending a college with no expense. Therefore, he does not necessarily have to attend a college to get a degree after going through the Navy.

“I’m very excited about it, actually,” Peraino said. “While everyone else is going to be having the college experience, which I hear is supposed to be very fun, I’m actually going to be furthering my career and also have access to the G.I. Bill, so I’ll be able to go to college for free.”

In his free time while at the Navy, Peraino plans to play chess.

“In the six to eight years that I’m going to be gone,” Peraino said. “I’m going to be training very hard just so I can become one of the top 10 chess players in the United States one day.”

As a dedicated player in the Chess Club, Peraino is the captain.

“We did very well this year at the state competition,” Peraino said. “Whenever we played off against Vianney High School, I played a roughly equal game against my opponent, and at the end he ran into some time trouble and started making errors. I was able to take advantage of it and beat him pretty easily.”

The Chess Club got third out of all the schools in Missouri.

Now that the big competition is over, members can just play for fun or play in small tournaments with students from schools in the district.

“Anyone can join. I don’t even have to participate in the tournaments if I don’t want to,” Peraino said. “If someone is really good, we will get them to try to join the tournaments, and if they’re not, that’s fine. They can just play to have fun.”

Chess being Peraino’s passion, he is very eager to have new members.

“At the moment, we don’t have very many members, so it would be awesome if we had more people to come to Chess Club,” Peraino said. “I realize that many people are busy with sports, and those that aren’t are probably dedicated to robotics, so that doesn’t leave many other chess players at EHS… unless they’re still hidden in the crowd.”