Seven student-athletes from Illinois State participated in the third installment of the State Farm/Missouri Valley Conference Just Read program at Pepper Ridge Elementary School in Bloomington, Ill., Thursday.
The goal of the program is to promote the importance of reading at an early age to stimulate educational growth, while utilizing Valley athletes as positive role models.
Participating student-athletes included: Branden Allen and William Rolle (football), Dana Ford and Trey Guidry (mens basketball), Liz Callham and Angela Bartsch (womens cross country/track and field), and Zora Skrabalova (womens basketball).
The most interesting aspect of the program yesterday was watching the kids respond to Zora, said Erik Rankin, coordinator of Academic Services. Being an international student, she still sometimes struggles with parts of the English language and it was neat to see how curious the kids were about her accent. Plus, the school is brand new, so it was neat for our student-athletes to see the new building and how it was set up.
