The City of Fort Worth honored Texas Wesleyan and the Big Read with a proclamation recognizing its role in revitalizing literature in American culture.

Fort Worth Mayor Pro Tem W.B. "Zim" Zimmerman, presented the proclamation to President Frederick G. Slabach and Twyla Miranda, professor of graduate education, at the Feb. 21 Fort Worth City Council meeting.

“On behalf of Texas Wesleyan, we thank you for your acknowledgement,” Slabach said at the meeting.

Big Read committee members representing area organizations The Reading Connection, the Tarrant Literacy Coalition, the Tarrant Area Food Bank, and the Fort Worth Independent School District were also present for the presentation.

City Council members were presented with copies of The Big Read book, The Grapes of Wrath. Mayor Betsy Price encouraged residents to read, and said that teaching a child to read was one of the best things a parent could do.

Texas Wesleyan University was awarded an $11,700 grant to participate in The Big Read, an initiative of the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) designed to restore reading to the center of American culture. Wesleyan is one of four grant recipients in Texas.