Pine Hill students meet their 1-million minute reading mark

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Students in Susan Blau’s third-grade class at Pine Hill Elementary School spent the most time reading during the month of February, contributing more than 150,000 minutes to the school’s annual read-a-thon. Bulletin photo by Emily Buss

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A healthy dose of competition is always a good thing, especially when it pertains to a read-a-thon.

For the third year in a row, Pine Hill Elementary School students participated in a themed reading competition that pushed them to, as a school, read 1 million minutes in a mere 30 days. And, without a day to spare, the final numbers were calculated early Friday morning totaling 1,140,570 minutes.

“I am so proud of these kids,” Principal Kevin Samsel said. “Not only did the boys and girls get involved in this competition, but their families did too. Surpassing our goal of 1 million minutes shows that our students really love reading and that reading is fun.”

This year, the school collaborated with student athletes from the University of Minnesota for the appropriately themed Go For Reading competition. The collegiate athletes presented yellow-and-maroon souvenirs to the elementary classrooms that read the most, and donated books and pencils to each grade.

Tags: cottage grove, updates, education