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When this story first broke with Konami providing DDR for every school in West Virginia I couldn't resist. I had to talk to Konami about this (and the WV School System but that's for later)... so I finally got through to Clara Gilbert who along with being SUPER nice (and lol'ing a lot) is Konami's Director of Business Partnerships.

We will be posting Part 2 of this story soon with an interview with Melanie Perky who is the Director for Office of Healthy Schools in WV. Click "Read More" for the Interview.

Here is the transcript from the Interview with Clara Gilbert:

*gets set up with headphones on etc for the Interview*
Inform8n: Sorry about that.
Clara Gilbert: That's OK.

Inform8n: The reason I'm doing this is I run a game site that originally started out of Charleston, WV...
Clara Gilbert: Oh wow, how nice!

Inform8n: ... And actually strangely enough my dad is a gym teacher so I think I have a unique perspective to talk about this. I thought, “I'd really talk to someone at Konami and someone from WV Public Schools and kinda talk about how they envision this going." So you happened to call back first.... Because you're awesome.
Clara Gilbert: Hahaha.

Inform8n: Did this partnership (with the WV Public Schools) come about as a result of the success from Konami's venture with 24 Hour Fitness Gyms?
Clara Gilbert: No, actually West Virginia put together a pilot study called “Games for Health" probably about a year ago. They had success with their own study, and they contacted us and said “Hey, we've had success with our own study. We'd love to talk to you about putting this in all schools."

Inform8n: Several articles I've read mention other school systems that are also contacting Konami...
Clara Gilbert: *excited* Oh my god... that's what I do all day is talk to all the schools! It's wonderful... it's extremely involving. I'm trying to be a little more organized and I'm going to put something together on our website soon. A lot of the questions that come in are, ‘We have DDR. How can we put together a program?' It's more of a curriculum question now... which is great. We're just trying to prepare so that any school that has a program could take ideas used by other schools.

Inform8n: Are there any (schools) currently in place that are further along than what the West Virginia School System? Or is it like you said and there are individual places that say, ‘We already have DDR but we're wondering if we can make it a curriculum?'
Clara Gilbert: There are some schools in Hawaii that I've been talking to for the last year and a half. They have established their own program. Every school has their own unique program. What West Virginia wants to do is create a curriculum for all the schools.

Inform8n: Who's going to be setting up that curriculum? Are you all suggesting a curriculum or is it going to be up to the West Virginia Schools?
Clara Gilbert: The Department of Education in West Virginia is spearheading it but they're getting input from us from more of a gameplay/technical perspective. But we're really leaving it up to them... they're in charge of their schools. We don't want to get too ahead of ourselves (if you will). It was really something they came up with and they understand their students and their school systems better than we do so we're more of a support than somebody that's leading the project.

Inform8n: I wanted to talk for a minute about the hardware you all decided to use. I've read in some of the articles that they're saying $30 a game and that you're going to be using the Xbox. So I'm assuming you be using Dance Dance Revolution Ultramix 3 or do you know which title they're going to be using?
Clara Gilbert: It's really up to WV what version they're using. We didn't say this is the version they had to use. So what they're doing is looking at all the versions and based on what they feel is most appropriate for their school system, that's what they're going to use.

Inform8n: I'm a pretty big fan of DDR myself and when they talked about the dance pads that were going in and for the price I'm thinking ‘Are they putting in hard dance pads in every school?!' because that would be great!
Clara Gilbert: They're actually considering that. Again, they're really serious about the project which is very nice.

Inform8n: Are there any other projects like this that you think are really neat that are coming down the pipe that you can talk about yet?
Clara Gilbert: I can't talk about anything else but as you alluded to there are other schools that are calling us and there are other states that are calling us. It's still to early to discuss who those states and who those schools are but we're very excited about the opportunity in other states. As those (other states) come to fruition I can announce them but not right now, it's still too early. To give you an idea the WV thing took about a year to get approved. There's a lot of red tape (if you will) that it had to go through... but I have to say that I admire WV for getting it through.

Inform8n: Well that's really all the questions I had... I really appreciate your time. Thank you so much! You have a wonderful day!
Clara Gilbert: Thank you, you too!

Remember we will be posting Part 2 of this story either later today or at the beginning of next week so stay tuned!