WINNEMUCCA - Winnemucca Grammar School's (WGS) Reading Week committee decided to use social media to get the word out on their idea to gather students and others into groups throughout the community to read in a "flash mob" Tuesday for a reading week activity.
Wikipedia defines a flash mob as a group of people who assemble suddenly in a public place, perform an unusual act for a brief time, then quickly disperse, often for the purposes of entertainment, satire, and artistic expression.
WGS has a Facebook page and used that as well as district email, text-to-text phone messages and good old fashioned word of mouth to invite people around Winnemucca, or wherever they were, to join WGS students at any one of several "flash mob" gathering sites, or just to stop whatever they were doing and take part in reading week - by reading!
Those who participated were invited to send WGS a picture of themselves or their group reading so all the photos could be shared with the students at Winnemucca Grammar School.
Groups gathered around town in places like the Humboldt County Courthouse, Winnemucca City Hall, the Nixon Lawn in front of the convention center, French Ford Middle School, The junior high, and Humboldt General Hospital.
However, in a testament to the power of the Internet, WGS organizers also got word that local re-enactor enthusiast Skip Hammargren set up a Civil War camp and the kids read in tents. Twin Creeks Mine employees celebrated reading week by reading for the prescribed time at work, and a local daycare also participated.
Jennifer Poole, one of WGS's Reading Weeks organizers, said they have absolutely no idea how many people joined the 403 students from the grammar school to read Tuesday morning, but said there's no question the event was a huge success.
"We had participants from the hospital, ambulance, sheriff's office, police department, courthouse, city hall and the different schools, as well as people who picked up on it from Facebook," said Poole.
The participant from farthest away may have been one of Poole's family members.
"My nephew read for 15 minutes in his Marine barracks in Washington, D.C., and sent a picture," she said.
Poole said the goal was to promote and pump up enthusiasm for reading.
"We want our students to be enthusiastic, life-long learners and readers," she said.[[In-content Ad]]
