A Muncie high school custodian with a bright idea for keeping score in cornhole and other games hopes his top award in a national trade show this summer will help him sell his invention as early as this week.
Paul Dytmire of Muncie won the gold medal in the Toys and Games category at the INPEX trade show for inventors last month in Pittsburgh.
“I’m the kind of guy who never wins anything,” Dytmire said. “I never thought I would win this award — it was the happiest moment in my life.”
Chrissa Chverchko, a spokeswoman for the INPEX show, said awards were given in 44 categories, with judges making their decisions based upon how useful, creative and appealing the inventions are.
Dytmire saw the need for Score, his scoreboard with 21 LED lights, after noticing how often spectators would walk up to a beanbag or horseshoe game in progress and immediately ask who was winning. The lighting is important because so many games take place in the gloom of dusk.
“I got the idea of coming up with LED lights and couple of cup holders and thought it would be a cool thing,” he said.
Score took three years to develop. It’s not the first invention for Dytmire, a custodian at Muncie Central High School who said he previously came up with a hat-and-gloves combination winter garment — but lost out when somebody swiped his idea.
His creative sparks don’t come from a laboratory: Dytmire graduated from high school about 20 years ago and has no college experience. But he loves fishing, hunting and especially games like cornhole.
A month after the gold medal in Pittsburgh, his next stop is a meeting this week with an Illinois company to talk about marketing his invention. And he’s not finished coming up with new ideas: his dream is for people to walk into a store and see what he’s created.
“If Score becomes big and helps me financially, I will have more stuff related to backyard games,” he said. “I always had an inventive mind.”
