As Kansas City is being recognized for its citywide crusade for reading, the national director of the Campaign for Grade Level Reading took a moment recently to honor one of the movement’s “fiercest and most relentless champions” — LINC Founder and former Chairman, Bert Berkley.

At the same time that Berkley is nearing his 99th birthday, Kansas City has been named a finalist for All-America City by the Campaign for Grade Level Reading and the National Civic League.

So Managing Director Ralph Smith took the occasion in his recent director’s letter to pay homage to the “indefatigable” Berkley.

“Not one mutual friend or acquaintance can recall being in a room with Bert without hearing him decry the abomination that illiteracy represents,” Smith wrote, “and make explicit what he regards as the major contributor to the school-to-prison pipeline — failure to read on grade level by the end of the third grade.”

In his letter, Smith also lauded the work of Lillian M. Lowery, the former chief state education officer of Maryland, former president of The Council of Chief State School Officers and former vice president of EdTrust who died earlier this month.

These “inspiring” champions of reading helped lead the nationwide campaign, Smith said, and Berkley is continuing his crusade to make early elementary instruction of phonics an intense and prevailing practice in schools.

“Bert is an undaunted and unabashed proponent of phonics as the only research-based method proven to successfully teach reading,” Smith said.

Smith praised Berkley’s recent investment to invigorate the cause.

Berkley and his family foundation — the Joan and Bert Berkley Blue Heron Foundation — has teamed with the University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Education to endow an Award for Excellence in Early Childhood Literacy.

The award, Berkley told Smith, will support an educator who successfully uses phonics and will hopefully inspire more educators to sharpen their classroom instruction.

Smith’s letter included a video, shared by Berkley, of Berkley describing the vision of the award.

Berkley hopes that other foundations will take up the cause and reach their own endowment agreements with schools of education.

Berkley, the chairman of Tension Envelope Corp. in Kansas City, founded LINC in 1992 as a state-chartered entity that launched the Caring Communities initiative to help the state localize resources, reform welfare, give communities control of the services they need and improve social service systems.

The Campaign for Grade Level Reading unites foundations, nonprofit partners, business leaders, government agencies, states and communities across the nation in the mission to ensure that more children in low-income families succeed in school and graduate prepared for college, a career, and active citizenship.

Kansas City is one of 20 cities vying to be one of the 10 cities honored annually by the All America City Award. This year the award will honor cities that leverage community resources and civic engagement to give more children an equitable chance of life success.