On West Virginia’s Read to Me Day, Nov. 20, AEP and Appalachian Power employees will tell more than 13,000 students the story of how the Golden Delicious apple was discovered in West Virginia. A corps of 175 employee volunteers will fan out across the company’s West Virginia service area to read the book Golden Delicious: A Cinderella Apple Story to elementary school students. At each of the 275 elementary schools, employees will read to students in two or more classrooms, then donate the book to the school’s library.

Golden Delicious: A Cinderella Apple Story is a true story by West Virginia author Anna Egan Smucker about the discovery of the Golden Delicious apple on Anderson Mullins’s farm in Clay County, W.Va., over a hundred years ago. The Stark Brothers of Stark Brothers Nurseries were always on the lookout for new kinds of fruit. After Mullins sent the brothers some of the golden apples, they traveled hundreds of miles by horseback and train to see the apple tree.

Smucker grew up in Weirton, W.Va., and now lives in Bridgeport. She drew upon her childhood in Appalachia for her first children’s book, No Star Nights. Smucker has written six books, three for children and three geared toward older readers. As part of Appalachian Power’s support of Read to Me Day, Smucker will talk about her new book on Tuesday, November 18, at H.E. White Elementary in Clay County at 10 a.m. and at Grandview Elementary in Charleston at 1 p.m.

“Participating in Read to Me Day is a great opportunity for our employees to be involved in the communities where they work and live,” said Jeri Matheney, Appalachian Power spokeswoman. “But our overriding goal is to emphasize the importance of reading to young children.”

The company began large-scale participation in West Virginia’s statewide Read to Me Day in 2001, and since that time has donated more than 2,300 books to school libraries and read aloud to more than 113,000 students.

Appalachian Power has almost 1 million customers in Virginia, West Virginia and Tennessee (as AEP Appalachian Power). It is a unit of American Electric Power, one of the largest electric utilities in the United States, which delivers electricity to more than 5 million customers in 11 states. AEP ranks among the nation’s largest generators of electricity, owning nearly 38,000 megawatts of generating capacity in the U.S. AEP also owns the nation’s largest electricity transmission system, a nearly 39,000-mile network that includes more 765 kilovolt extra-high voltage transmission lines than all other U.S. transmission systems combined. 
                                                                          
 
Note to Editors: A full schedule of all 275 schools is available and can be emailed or faxed to reporters by contacting Phil Moye at the address or phone below.