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On Thursday, hundreds of elementary school students from Overton ISD gathered in their auditorium for a reading of Christmas classic: The Polar Express.
All the children sat in silence as they listened to the narrator read to them. Already having the book memorized by heart, the narrator would even get the kids involved, cheering and actively participating in the reading.
This would be the 45th and final stop for Dean Kinney, a retired Kilgore College criminal justice professor. Since Dec. 1, he’s stopped at schools across East Texas, from Fruitvale to Jacksonville. His last stop would be in Overton.
Since 2009, Kinney has stopped at hundreds of schools in the region to share his love of reading with the younger generation. He began reading to his grandchildren’s schools in the early 2000s and that’s when one of his college students recommended him to more teachers.
“I actually read to the grandkids school back in the early 2000s and then I had a student, cause I taught at Kilgore College for 30 years, whose mother taught at Carlisle...” Kinney said. “Then what happened was the teacher network exploded.”
After spending 30 years in the college setting, when he’s not reading to the children he spends his retirement teaching classes on how to care for horses. However when December rolls around, he trades the saddle for his stack of books.
“I retired in 2012 and at that point, I began to work with horses... I had always had horses,” Kinney said. “I help people solve horse problems for the most part but December I do no horse work because I’m reading all the time.”
Although he says he has a blast reading to the kids, he does this to show them that reading is a fundamental part of learning. As an educator and avid reader, he shows the students the importance of picking up a book.
During his time on a college campus, he noticed an alarming number of his students made it to college at a lower reading level than expected.
“We had people come to Kilgore College that were very low readers… and so my thought was when I got asked to read to small children was ‘Maybe if they see me reading a book and having fun and enjoying it, that would motivate them to read a little bit,’” Kinney said.
Lisa Moore, a reading intervention teacher at Overton, says she knew Kinney before teaching at Overton.
“He’s also done the Grinch at a different, when I was at a different school,” Moore said.
Moore says that since Overton is a smaller school, Kinney’s readings are a special treat to the students for different occasions since they get to participate while he reads.
“If he wants them to cheer or if they make a sad face,” Moore said. “They are definitely into the story.”
Kinney offers to read to schools without making money in return. Instead, the children will often show their appreciation through hugs and homemade cards, which he displays in his home.
“You’ll see some child come up and give me a hug you’ll see some child say ‘You’re a good reader,’” Moore said. “That’s the reason I do it because of the response I get from the children and they sometimes give me cards which I put up at the house.”
Moore says Kinney will be back on the Overton campus in the spring to read to them again.
By Andrea Valdez
Published: Dec. 22, 2023 at 10:13 AM CST
OVERTON, Texas (KLTV)