Feb. 21, 2011

COLUMBIA, S.C. – South Carolina women’s basketball closed out its 12th season of the Read with the Gamecocks program by celebrating the winners of the second segment of this season’s program at halftime of Sunday’s win over Auburn. Across the program’s two parts this season, 84 schools from across the state of South Carolina participated. The combined 9,270 students read 2,797,741 pages.

In the second segment, students were asked to log their reading throughout the month of January. Over 5,000 students across 37 schools participated in this portion of the program, amassing more than 1.7 million pages. The school that read the most total pages was Lake Carolina Elementary with 251,378 pages. The Gamecocks will visit the participants at Lake Carolina later this spring as a reward for their reading efforts.

Seven individual winners were also recognized at halftime of the game. Lake Carolina second grader Freddie Lawrence was the top reader in the state, pouring over 11,250 pages in the month to win an autographed basketball. Winners from the other grades were: Cash Warren from Windsor Elementary (Pre-K), Micah Elliott from Meadowfield Elementary (K), Meadowfield’s Joshua Elliot (1st), Rice Creek Elementary’s Sunnie Nguyen (3rd), Nikey Patel of Windsor Elementary (4th) and Queen Gibbs of Fairfield Magnet School for Math and Science (5th).

South Carolina women’s basketball sponsors the program each year to help make reading fundamental to all elementary school children throughout the state of South Carolina.