Four students won a $1,000 scholarship for their reading efforts in the annual statewide Tristar Reads contest.
Wesley Martin, a sixth-grader from Hamblen County, was the overall winner 33,134 minutes.
The other winners were:
- Tallen Haag: The 10th grade Robertson County homeschool student is the high school winner with 22,950 minutes read.
- Srinehal Thumu: An eighth-grader at West Wilson Middle School in Wilson County is the middle school winner with 21,063 minutes read.
- Timothy Bell, Jr.: The third-grader at Merrol Hyde Magnet School in Sumner County Schools had 8,172 minutes read in the elementary division.
Tennesseans for Student Success holds the Tristar Reads contest that ran May 26 to Aug. 3.
"We decided to do a summer of reading for school, so I read some books for school and some for fun. I tried to wake up early and read most of the day," Wesley said in a news release.
Tennesseans for Student Success launched Tristar Reads in 2016 to encourage Tennessee students entering grades K-12 to read for at least 20 minutes each day during the summer, according to a news release.
Thee were 423 students who accumulated more than 550,000
reading minutes in the summer contest, according to Tennesseans for Student Success.
This year's contest was supported by Atmos Energy and Vooks, which provided participants with access to hundreds of digital books through a free one-year subscription.
This story was produced by reporter Andy Humbles ahumbles@tennessean.com with the assistance of Artificial Intelligence (AI). Journalists were involved in every step of the review, editing and publishing process.
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This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Area Tennessee students are summer reading and scholarship winners
