Today’s Tri-State Defender rests inside a special 4-page cover. On the cover’s third page, the Defender launches its youth literacy focus with 110 tasks that every young man should know how to do before the ninth grade.

We embark on this campaign with the list’s author, Tony Nichelson. Soon we will debut a regular newspaper segment that expands upon these tasks and meshes them with other critically needed skills, including cultural competency.

While we begin here with a focus on young men, our reach will be inclusive. Still, we are mindful of the special need young men in our community have to hook up with caring, conscious adults and life skills.

We will use our newspaper to facilitate that hook up. Our motto: read, learn, grow and prosper.