Breckenridge Texan

By Tony Pilkington/Breckenridge Texan

Last week, when Breckenridge Rotary Club members Les and Sherry Strickland showed up at South Elementary to hand out dictionaries to the school’s third graders, they found a very enthusiastic audience.

Of course, they weren’t giving out just any ordinary dictionary with a list of words and their definitions. The one they gave out, called “A Student’s Dictionary,” contains additional information, such as the Constitution of the United States and the Declaration of Independence. It also has brief biographies of all U. S. Presidents, world maps, and information about all 50 states, countries of the world, and the planets in our solar system.

There’s also a section showing how to make sign language letters, which the kids loved. And, it has a page with the longest word in the English language printed on it. The word is so long it takes up almost the entire page.

So, it was no wonder the students wasted no time jumping into the pages. They were soon showing each other all the cool stuff they were finding in the book, and many of them were using one hand to hold the book while they used their other hand to make sign language letters.

You could also see their brains get fired up when Les asked them who was president when they were born. They wasted no time flipping through the pages to find the answer. And, of course they went to see the longest word.

The Breckenridge Rotary Club purchases the dictionaries for third graders each year through Rotary International as part of Rotary’s literacy initiative,

Giving the dictionaries to area third graders is something the local Rotary Club has been doing for many years, according to Les. “Well, when I joined in 2013, they were giving them out,” he said.

Besides giving them to third graders at South Elementary, they also give them to the third graders at the Moran and Woodson schools. Les said this year they will give out 90 dictionaries, which is about average for the annual project.

Seeing the kids’ reaction to the getting their own personal dictionary is very rewarding, Les said. “Oh, they’re so excited just to get the book with all that information in there,” he said. “What we saw the other day was very typical. This is like the third, fourth or fifth year that I attended a dictionary distribution. And that’s the typical response that we get.”

To see more photos of the third graders enjoying their dictionaries, click here.

Les and Sherry Strickland (standing) handed out dictionaries to Breckenridge third-graders last week on behalf of the Breckenridge Rotary Club. The organization also provided dictionaries to third graders in Moran and Woodson. (Photo by Tony Pilkington/Breckenridge Texan)

Cutline, top photo: Third graders at Breckenridge’s South Elementary take a look at the new dictionaries that they received last week from Les and Sherry Strickland on behalf of the Breckenridge Rotary Club. The dictionaries have more than just words and definitions; they also include historical information, maps, sign language and more. (Photo by Tony Pilkington/Breckenridge Texan)