FRANKFORT, KY -- The joy and importance of reading will be stressed to elementary school students in Boyd, Breathitt, Johnson, Lawrence, Leslie and Martin counties Friday, Nov. 18, when volunteers from Kentucky Power read to second graders as part of the company’s eighth annual “Read to Me Day” event.

Each year on Read to Me Day, employee-volunteers travel to participating local schools, book in hand, to share the gift of reading with students and to encourage them to make literacy a major part of their education and life.

Read to Me Day is a program that has proved popular in the counties Kentucky Power serves. Over the course of the last eight years, Kentucky Power employees have read to thousands of students in eastern Kentucky. At each school the volunteers visit, they emphasize the joy and importance of reading, then read aloud a children’s book selected especially for the event. After reading the book, the volunteers leave the book as a gift for the school’s library, increasing the library’s collection and giving the students a chance to check the book out on their own.

The children’s book selected for this year’s event is “Wallie Exercises” by Steve Ettinger, a certified personal trainer. Through simple text and colorful illustrations, Ettinger emphasizes to young children the importance of exercising and staying fit. Wallie, the book’s main character, is a wonderful dog, but tends toward extreme laziness.  One day his inactivity leads to a real problem and his owner sends him on an adventure to learn the benefits of fitness, friendship and following through in order to reach your goals. The book is a fun, enjoyable read for “children of all ages” and is beautifully illustrated by Pete Proctor, a former teacher and current freelance illustrator.

“Kentucky Power is again pleased to undertake the Read to Me Day program,” said Greg Pauley, president and chief operating officer of Kentucky Power. “It gives us a chance to connect with our area schools and students, but more importantly helps us to highlight the benefits of literacy for growth and development,” he said. “This is something our employees look forward to each year and we are humbled that so many teachers have welcomed us into their classrooms.”

Kentucky Power piloted the Read to Me Day program in 2004 in Pike County, and now offers the program annually, on a rotating basis, to schools in its 20-county service territory.  There is no cost to schools to participate. The volunteers also provide students information about electricity and electrical safety, and encourage them to “play it safe” around electricity.