PILOT MOUNTAIN — With the sound of the whistle, Assistant Superintendent Chuck Graham and Principal Tracey Lewis closed in on each other in the center of Westfield Elementary School’s gymnasium.

In a matter of minutes, the fight was over and a winner was declared. Lewis defeated Graham with a hard shove in the upper back and a deafening roar arose from the female half of the crowd.

Lewis and Graham were decked out in sumo wrestling costumes and were competing to announce the winner of the school’s reading competition. With Graham’s fall, the Westfield Wildcat Extreme Girls were announced as the winners of the competition between them and the WWE Boys to see who could read the most words.

Students were challenged to read 20 million words and managed to exceed that goal. By Friday, the students at the school had read 24,304,847 words, seven million more words than students read last year. The girls just edged out the boys, who read 12,015,185 words, by reading 12,289,662 words.

“The whole month long, the boys really, really read and the girls came back. Boys, you still have a lot to be proud of. We are so proud of each and every one of you,” said Lewis.

To represent the closeness of the reading challenge, Assistant Principal Carla Coble and Custodian Eric Sechrist took on each other during the first round of the sumo take down which ended in a tie.

“This is a huge accomplishment considering that we have just started a new reading program and with the number of snow days that we’ve had,” said Sabrina Wilmoth, media teacher. “I am so proud of our students.”

Throughout the day, students celebrated Read Across America and their own reading challenge with a number of activities. The cafeteria served up green eggs and ham as well as Dr. Seuss birthday cake for lunch and retired teachers and parents volunteered to read to classrooms.

Students were encouraged to dress up as their favorite book character and had the opportunity to have their pictures taken. The picture sales brought in $370, which the school will donate to the American Red Cross Haiti Relief Fund.

Students participated in a Dr. Seuss art contest in addition to the book character contest.

Teachers also got in on the celebration. Each homeroom created a float to go in the Parade of Books which led into the gym Friday afternoon. Each room chose a book and designed a float to represent it which they then rolled through the school to the gym entrance. Classes chose books including “Mr. Popper’s Penguins,” “Moongobble and the Dragon of Doom,” “In a People House” and “The Magic School Bus.”

Awards were given out to the best floats. First place, “Horton Hatches the Egg,” received a $200 Scholastic IRC gift certificate for classroom books; second place, “Jack and the Beanstalk,” received $100; and third place, “Humpty Dumpty,” received $50.

“Teachers, you have gone above and beyond what we asked you to do. The book floats were truly amazing,” said Wilmoth.

Two students also were singled out for their reading accomplishments. When Wilmoth started at the school, there was a one million word club for students who managed to read that many words in a school year. The next year, she expanded it to a two million word club. J.T. Tarn became the latest inductee into that club.

Now, four years later, Wilmoth has had to create an additional club, the three million word club. Kaylie Jessup was inducted into that club Friday having read more than three million words so far with time still left in the school year.

Contact Morgan Wall at mwall@mtairynews.com or 719-1929.