Laramie County Library System Board Member Steven Leafgreen reads a favorite book to a class of Cheyenne first-graders.
Libraries across Wyoming hosted first grade students and their teachers for the annual Wyoming Reads celebration on May 19.
Laramie County Library System‘s location in Cheyenne, Wyoming, hosted over thirty classes of excited students for a morning of reading and fun. During the Cheyenne event, classes are treated to the play, “Good Queen Sue,” as well as listening to books read aloud by local community members.
First-graders were greeted enthusiastically by library staff and volunteers at the Laramie County Library System’s Wyoming Reads event in Cheyenne.
There was no shortage of energy, excitement, and laughter as the children followed their teachers to their assigned locations at the library, but the noise soon dwindled to near silence as the guest readers held up their selected books, turned to the first pages, and began to read stories of funny animals, brave kids, and worlds found only in the imagination.
A group of Wyoming State Library staff joined in the festivities as readers and helpers, joining Laramie County Library staff and board members, Wyoming Governor and First Lady Mark and Jennie Gordon, Cheyenne Mayor Patrick Collins, and many other volunteers from the Cheyenne community.
Wyoming Reads is a program of the Sue Jorgenson Foundation and promotes childhood literacy in Wyoming by providing each Wyoming first-grader with a new, hardcover book of their very own. Students choose their books earlier in the school year and receive them after the Wyoming Reads celebration event held in their community. This initiative began in Casper in the late 1990s, and later expanded to include the entire state of Wyoming.