Sacred Heart students encouraged to Run Away With a Good Book

By RENEE WEBB, Globe editor
February 19, 2004

Students at Sacred Heart School in Sioux City were encouraged to Run Away With a Good Book during the school's third annual read-a-thon that kicked off on Feb. 13.

Terry Comstock, physical education teacher at Sacred Heart, pointed out that after the school's parent support group had selected the Run Away With a Good Book sports theme, they asked him to organize this year's event.

"An event like this gets the students excited to read. If they can see that reading can be fun, then maybe they will do it more on their own time," he noted.

Various activities were organized for the read-a-thon kick-off. One of the most popular was a relay race for the teachers. This activity kicked off with a mini-parade for the teachers similar to the parade of athletes during the Olympics.

Ten student athletes - five from Bishop Heelan High School and five from Briar Cliff University - were on hand to read to kindergarten through fourth-graders. The older students had quiet reading on their own.

"It is good for the younger students to see how important education is to the athletes that they look up to," noted Comstock. "They are students first, athletes second."

The student athletes enjoyed the experience as much as the younger students.

Mike Rickord, a junior at Heelan who is a golfer, pointed out that he remembered how excited he was as a grade school student when high school students visited his school.

"The kids were great," he said. "They liked to read along with me. I had fun doing it."

Tommy Mousel, a senior who plays baseball and basketball, said he volunteered to read to the younger students because it is good to be a positive role model.

"The kids seemed to look up to us," he said. "And maybe if they see us reading they will know it's important."

Adi Cizmic, a senior basketball player, said it was fun to read to the students.

"I was surprised because most of the kids in my group could read and they are only in kindergarten," he said. "I was really impressed."

The afternoon included a TaeKwonDo demonstration, skit by the music teacher and concluded with a variety of games. Some of the games were hulahoop contest, barrel racing, miniature golf challenge and free-throw contest.

In order to have a comfortable setting conducive to sitting down with a good book, students were allowed to bring beanbags, stuffed animals and so forth.

Janell Darwin, a seventh grade student at Sacred Heart, said it was good to have time to read as well as time to hang out with her friends. Having her video rocker chair on hand, provided for a relaxed atmosphere to rack up points for reading.

Lucas Britton, a fifth grade student, said, "It's been a great place to read and have a little break from school."

After the afternoon of activities on Feb. 13, Sacred Heart students participated and earned points for reading through Feb. 20.

Last year the read-a-thon took on a Lewis and Clark theme.