Tribune staff reports

Students at St. John’s Lutheran School, Sauers, recently completed a reading-incentive program called Reach for the Stars, sponsored by Usborne Books and More.

The students were challenged to read at least 300 minutes during a two-week period. There were 60 students who participated, and they read a total of 34,836 minutes. That’s an average of more than 580 minutes per student, which is almost double the minutes required.

The students also collected pledges from sponsors to support their reading. The students collected more than $2,400 worth of pledges, and 100 percent of the money collected was given back to the students and the classrooms in new books.

Each student selected books with half of the money they collected, and their classroom received books with the other half of the money. There was no cost to the school, and St. John’s received an additional 10 percent of the total collected in additional books.

Thirteen students read at least 1,000 minutes. They were, Trey Sweany, first grade; Brady Sawyer and Phoebe Underwood, second grade; Trenton Burton, third grade; Brocker Bottorff, Kate Connell, Ally Leinart and Brooke Pranger, fourth grade; Sydney Jaynes and Avery Koch, sixth grade; Anna Benter and Amelia Hessong, seventh grade; and Ethan Rust, eighth grade.

The top three readers, Koch, Hessong and Connell, earned a medal.

For information about program, contact Jan Thayer at 317-412-4237 or [email protected].