On Friday, September 18th, Read To Succeed celebrated their 12th annual "Reading in the Schools Day" throughout Rutherford County. Over forty schools participated, reaching more than 27,000 students in Rutherford County schools, Murfreesboro City schools, private schools, and preschools on this special day set aside to celebrate reading.

This annual effort to connect the community with the classroom encourages volunteer readers to read aloud to an enthusiastic group of students. This year over 1,000 parents, grandparents, elected officials, athletes, and community leaders made it a priority to model the love of reading by sharing a good book.

• Mayor Shane McFarland, visited several classes at Mitchell Neilson Elementary today (picture above). In each classroom, he not only read to the students but explained to them how much you can learn from reading. He stressed how reading puts you ahead of the kids who spend time playing video games, etc. and has a major impact on your grades and your future.
  
  
• Murfreesboro Council Member, Bill Shacklett showed students the camera his father used to take pictures compared with the iphone that he uses today (see picture above). He then reminded students that if they don't currently love to read, they can read about things they like such as sports, photography, or history in order to fall in love with reading.

Several readers, including Mayor McFarland and Councilman Bill Shacklett, said that Reading In The Schools Day is one of their favorite days of the year and they look forward to sharing the importance of reading with students each year.

According to Lisa Mitchell, Executive Director of Read To Succeed, Reading in the Schools Day gets bigger and better each year. "We love that the schools have embraced this annual event and they are finding more creative ways each year to celebrate reading and remind kids of its importance."

For more information and pictures, visit the Read To Succeed Facebook page @ www.facebook.com/readtosucceedTN?ref=hl.