As he strode up to the podium at the Jefferson Parish School Board’s June meeting, Mel Dussel asked everyone to join him for a pledge.
“I promise,” Dussel said, as board members and the audience repeated after him. “Over the summer holidays … I will read at least five books.”
It’s a pledge he says in every elementary school across the parish every year. As chairman of the Rewards for Reading program at the Kiwanis of Metairie Dawn Busters, the 77-year-old retiree finishes every presentation with those words…