COLUMBUS, Ind. (WISH) — The winner of the I Love to Read Challenge received a trophy and pizza party on Friday.

The I Love to Read Challenge encourages safe competition among classrooms with a focus on personal effort and collaborative achievement. WISH-TV is in proud partnership with the NCAA’s Readers are Leaders Program, which aims to get elementary school students excited about reading. Rascal’s Fun Zone sponsors the I Love to Read Challenge.

This year, 62 classrooms in 35 different schools across Indiana joined the challenge, and the students racked up more than 1.2 million minutes of reading.

Teacher Sharon Ashmore and her third-grade students at Columbus Christian School in Columbus won the challenge. On Friday, the class received the trophy and these prizes:

• A two-hour unlimited wristband from Rascal’s Fun Zone.
• A pizza party for their classroom from Hot Box Pizza.
• A classroom library refresh from Scholastic books.
• Books for all students and a teacher’s shopping spree at Teachers Treasures.
• I Love to Read classroom flying disc and mini-basketballs.
• A I Love to Read flying disc for the top reader in the class.

The teacher and her assistant bought and presented medals to each student at Friday’s celebration. The school had the students parade through the halls as the entire school cheered them on. Families joined the pizza party.

One student told me that he didn’t like reading before the challenge and found it to be hard, but he had so much fun doing this he now is a much better reader and “loves to read”

WISH-TV announced the winning class on DayBreak in early March.