Four students from Rutherford County Schools – Rowan Wools, Benjamin Luther, Collin Barrett and Olivia Palmer – were recently invited to the Governor’s Mansion for the annual Kids State Dinner with Gov. Bill Haslam and his wife, Crissy. 

The students, who represented Smyrna Elementary School, McFadden School of Excellence and Thurman Francis Arts Academy, earned an invitation by participating in the First Lady’s Read to be Ready summer reading challenge.

Students statewide read a minimum of 2,000 minutes from June 1 through July 27 to add their name to a lottery system used to randomly draw the Top 100. Students could earn another place in the lottery for each addition 1,000 minutes of reading.

Six students from Rutherford County were selected.

Wools, Luther, Barrett and Palmer were confirmed as students from Rutherford County Schools. Wools attends Smyrna and Palmer goes to nearby Thurman Francis, while Luther and Barrett are enrolled at McFadden.

A day after the Kids State Dinner, the First Lady thanked everyone in an email sent on her behalf. She said it was a wonderful evening at the Tennessee Residence and added, “We are so proud of all of our amazing readers — we know that they will go on to do great thing.