As part of Gladstone Elementary School's Reading Week, many special guest readers came to read and to share some words of inspiration with the students. On Tuesday, April 11, Police Chief Col. Michael Winquist and Major Todd Patalano came to visit and read to two of the school's kindergarten classes. Chief of Police Winquist read "Lucky Ducklings" to the students and Major Patalano read "Fish Had a Wish."

Before starting his reading, Col. Winquist asked the students if they had any questions for him, and as the students raised their hands he proceeded to answer questions about calling 911, about the need for sirens to all sound the same and about how fast one must have to run in order to catch “the bad guys.”

During the story, Col. Winquist asked the students to predict what they thought might happen next and talked about their earlier 911 discussion when the fire department made an appearance to rescue the ducklings in the story.

Patalano started off his reading session by asking the students if they remembered when he last visited the school with bike helmets for the students to wear. Many students raised their hand and some had already used their helmets when riding their bikes recently.

Patalano told the students that he had stickers outside in his police car that when issued to students, made them honorary police officers for the day. He promised that if they listened well throughout the story that he would get the stickers and hand them out at the end.

Sure enough, after the story and the post-story discussions that followed, Patalano and Col. Winquist went out to the car to get the stickers and handed them out to both classrooms of students, making them honorary officers.

"Wear this with pride," Patalano told them as he handed out the much-anticipated badges.