PEORIA, Ill. -- Bradley Basketball players Charonn Woods (St. Louis, Mo./MAC H.S.) and Leah Kassing (Mt. Sterling, Ill./Brown County H.S.) recently visited grade school students at Franklin-Edison School as part of the State Farm/Missouri Valley Conference "Just Read!" program.  To learn more about their visit with Peoria school children, watch Dave Snell's video report.

In November of 1998, the Missouri Valley Conference began a community outreach program called "Just Read!"  The program, which is co-sponsored by State Farm Insurance, had Missouri Valley Conference student-athletes visiting local elementary schools, reading books and relating the importance that reading has made to their lives.  The program is very successful, and video segments from each Missouri Valley Conference visit are aired during the league's basketball television package.
 
Each Valley institution schedules "Just Read!" visits to elementary schools in their communities periodically throughout the academic year. 
 
For more information regarding Bradley's visit to Franklin-Edison School, contact Bradley University's Jessi Searby at 309/677-4856.  For more information regarding the "Just Read!" program, contact Mary Mulvenna -- 314/444-4318 -- of the Missouri Valley Conference  staff.