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Sam Penrod reporting Utah Jazz players took advantage of a break in their schedule to read to elementary students today.
Seventy-eight schools were involved in a reading contest, and today just a few got a visit from a Jazz player.
Twelve schools around the state earned a chance to have a Jazz player read to their school today. It was a big moment for the students, after a month-long contest where they read more than a million minutes!
Students at Ridgeline Elementary cheered a Jazz star, who came to read to them, after they read 1,338,107 minutes during February. Jeff Shirley, a 6th-grade teacher, said, "Everybody, from kindergarten all through 6th grade, all pitched in every day, read a lot. Some kids in my class read 5,000 or 6,000 minutes."
The students at the school had an extra edge in this contest. When they were stranded overnight during a blizzard, they spent the time reading.
At Snow Springs Elementary in Lehi, Carlos Boozer told students about the importance of reading and getting an education. He said, "Reading is very important, and they get an opportunity every day to come and get more educated by their teachers and their parents. It's a beautiful thing to go to school every day and learn so much more."
In Tooele, new Jazz team member Kyle Korver read to students at Middle Canyon Elementary and let some students show their stuff on the court.
Organizers of the reading contest believe every student who participated in the event is a winner, even if their school didn't get a visit from a Jazz player today. Janis Rogers, with Scholastic Books, said, "To increase literacy skills and open themselves up to more books and have that lifelong love of learning that will carry with them forever. You can go anywhere you want when you read books."
In all it is estimated that students from the participating schools read more than 30 million minutes during the month of February!
