City council proclaims February as Lacey Loves to Read Month, honors bookmark contest winners

The Lacey City Council honored seven grand prize bookmark contest winners and proclaimed February as Lacey Loves to Read Month. 

The recognition of the contest winners took place during a city council meeting on Tuesday, Jan. 20. 

The Lacey Loves to Read program, now in its 23rd year, will also host No. 1 New York Times bestselling author Renee Watson next month.

The proclamation calls literacy "a top school and community priority" integral to success in school, business, and daily living. It encourages a culture of 20 minutes a day of family reading practice and notes that literature exploring diversity, global and social issues can "help increase tolerance and unity within a community." 

According to the city, the bookmark contest collected more than 3,000 entries this year. The competition produced 24 winners from every North Thurston Public Schools campus, private schools and homeschool programs. 

Grand prize and special award winners are as follows: 

• Grades K-1: Olivia Armas, Horizons Elementary  

• Grades 2-3: Jaden Chung, Olympic View Elementary  

• Grades 4-5: Natalie Diaz, Pleasant Glade Elementary  

• Grades 6-8: Eliza Banks, Komachin Middle School  

• Grades 9-12: Ayane Ordonez Feliciano, River Ridge High School  

• Community: Norah Koppel, homeschooled 

• Superintendent's choice: Lily Ibanez, Komachin Middle School 

Mayor Andy Ryder presented certificates to each winner. Recipients also received copies of Watson's books, bookmark prints and posters. 

Watson is going to visit Lacey on Feb. 11-13 for elementary and secondary school assemblies. The author will then headline a community event on Feb. 12 from 6-8 p.m. at the Koval Center at North Thurston High School. The event will feature a presentation, book signing and door prizes. 

Watson has sold more than a million books and won both the Coretta Scott King Award and Walter Dean Myers Award. She writes about identity, race, class and gender, with settings often taking place in the Pacific Northwest. 

Raised in Portland, Watson saw her debut adult novel "Skin and Bones" named to Amazon's Best Book of May in 2024.

The Lacey Loves to Read program partners with the City of Lacey, Lacey Timberland Library, Lacey South Sound Chamber and North Thurston Public Schools. Olympia Reads!! rejoined as a partner this year. 

Meanwhile, the program also sponsors a teen writing and art contest for middle and high school students. Entries hit a record this year, the city said. 

Read Around Lacey, another program component for elementary students, runs from Jan. 26 through Feb. 6. Participants visit local businesses, read aloud a short writing sample or book excerpt and qualify for prize drawings.