Red Deer once again lost the Read for 15 challenge to Donalda.

The community north of Stettler was again first in the province for number of readers, per population, in the national literacy challenge. Some 161 people from the community of 259 reported reading for at least 15 minutes on Friday.

This amounted to more than 60 per cent of the population for Donalda, which also won the contest in 2016.

By comparison, Red Deer got about 15 per cent of its population reading — some 15,516 people out of out nearly 100,000 residents reported their literacy to the library on Jan. 27.

Jill Griffith, youth services manager, praises the two local school districts for getting teachers and students to buy into the challenge. Since the contest is based on percentage of population, Griffith admitted it’s harder for larger communities to make their mark.

But she’s pleased Red Deer made it to No. 14 on the 2017 Alberta list, and increased reported local readership from about 13,000 people in 2016.