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HIGHLAND -- Thousands of elementary students were in a competition to read as many minutes as they could during the month of February. Today the winning schools got their prize: a visit from a Utah Jazz player.
This is the second year in a row that Ridgeline Elementary in Highland was a winner in the competition, and students could not have been more excited to see who came to their school.
Utah Jazz star Carlos Boozer was welcomed with the sound of hundreds of screaming students at Ridgeline Tuesday afternoon. The school was involved in the "Be a Team Player- Read" contest, which is part of the NBA Cares outreach initiative.
In all, Ridgeline students read 1,819,264 minutes during the month-long competition.
Not only did Boozer visit the school, giving out a lot of high fives to some young Jazz fans, he read some stories to the students.
Boozer said, "I'm proud of them for reading. I think starting to learn to read at an early age is something that is going to help them in the long run, and I'm blessed to be here to support them in their reading and education. It makes our community better and our world better, and I'm just proud of the kids."
Boozer is one of 10 Utah Jazz players who visited elementary schools in the state Tuesday afternoon to reward the students who read the most time outside of school hours during February.
About 32,000 students from 55 elementary schools participated in the contest. In all, those students read 23 million minutes.
E-mail: spenrod@ksl.com
