Bookmark finalists treated to party with Scorpions

  Fifty-one artistic elementary school students were treated to pizza at Chuck E Cheese's Saturday morning.

  They were the finalists in a contest to design the best bookmark, which had thousands of entries.

  “We distributed 40,000 blank bookmarks to local elementary schools,” said Mary Marshall, community relations manager for the Yuma Scorpions baseball team. “The principals at each of these schools chose a few winners. The work of the 51 finalists was then given to Andrea Lopez, executive assistant at the Yuma International Airport, which co-sponsored the contest."

   “These students were from Yuma School District 1, Gadsden School District, Crane School District and Somerton School District," said Lopez. "I would like to thank Big 5 Sporting Goods for donating 12 brand-new baseball gloves which were given to the finalists.

  Grand prize winner Eduardo Pesqueda of Rancho Viejo School received season tickets to the Scorpions' home games in addition to a glove.

  The other finalists included Luisa Lopez and Anthony Wolff of Tierra Del Sol; Omar Quijada of Roosevelt School; Hannah Fleeman of Rolle School;  Mayra Cobian of Cesar Chavez; Alexandra Rodriguez of Arizona Desert; Gianna Isabel Moreno of H.L. Suverkrup; and Christian Ortiz of Pueblo School.

  “We will take the winning design and reproduce it 40,000 times," said Mike Marshall, president of the Scorpions Baseball Club. "These new bookmarks will then be given to local schools. After a student reads four books, their teacher will sign their bookmark, and that student will be given two free tickets to a baseball game.

  "We hope that this will promote reading. It makes it fun for the kids because they know that they will be rewarded for reading.”

  "The airport is very pleased that we can give our kids a chance to use their artistic skills," Lopez said. "We want to let them know how important reading is in everyday life.”

  Cole St. Clair, media relationship manager for the Scorpions, agreed that getting kids to read is essential.

  “Literacy is something we should all support and get into,” he said. “Our involvement with families is extremely important to the Scorpions. We want to get new fans and keep the old ones.

  "I can’t imagine not having complete literacy in the community. One hundred percent literacy has to be the goal in our community, and we should accept nothing short of that.”