Oakesdale Mason Lodge presents bicycles

Oakesdale Lodge #55 of Free and Accepted Masons of Washington did their school year end Bikes for Books programs with Tekoa, Oakesdale, Garfield and Palouse. Winners were Jacob Anderson, Garfield; Lily Bren, Palouse; Marlay Brownson, Tekoa, and Ryan Henning and Karl Cooper of Oakesdale. Henning was the original winner but said he already had a bike and asked the teacher to draw another name which resulted in Cooper receiving the prize. The program was co-sponsored by the Pullman Walmart and Palouse Wind.

Oakesdale kept a record for the month of May to see how well the Bikes for Books program was working. In the grades one through six there were 2,612 tickets in the box verifying that 2,612 books were read by the students. That amounted to 52,220 minutes of reading or 870 hours and 20 minutes. All the school teachers remarked that the program encourages students to read more and improve their reading, spelling and grammar skills.