For six years the students at Polk Central Elementary School have been offered the opportunity to select their own book from a collection of hundreds.

The Rotary Club of Tryon, under the coordination of Rotarians Bill and Carolyn Jones, head the Reading Is Fundamental (RIF) program with the school teachers and staff to select appropriate books for the students at their various levels of reading ability.

Three distributions are provided by the Rotarians annually as the classes meet in the library by grades, hear selected readings from book offerings and then peruse four large tables of books for their selection. The students check-out their books for inventory purposes. More than 400 books are distributed though the RIF program each session which is funded by the Rotary Club of Tryon Foundation.

Rotarians performing RIF functions in addition to Bill and Carolyn Jones included Art Brown, Carol Browning, Hoot Livingston, Frank Ortiz, Les Stobbe, Judy Threlfall, Ron Wingo, Marshall Yeager and Paul Zimmerman.