Salve ad litus oriens! That greeting, which is Latin for “Welcome to the Eastern Shore,” is what members of the Easton High School Latin Club will be saying to their fellow scholars from around the state on the last weekend in April. For the first time ever, the Maryland Junior Classical League (MDJCL) will hold its annual statewide convention on the Eastern Shore, and Easton High has been chosen to host it.
More than 70 middle and high school students from all over Maryland, along with their faculty advisors and chaperones, will descend on Easton April 26 and 27. This will be the first two-day statewide convention in the history of the MDJCL.
During the course of the weekend, statewide officers will be elected for the 2014-2015 academic year. Two EHS students currently hold statewide offices: Sarah Kilmon is the Vice President; and Lillian Zhao is the Historian. The local chapter’s officers include: President, Sarah Kilmon; Vice President, Ellie Kilmon; Secretary: Mary Prochaska; and Historian, Emma Langfitt. The Latin Club’s advisor is Latin teacher Inna Kunz.
Students will participate in academic, athletic, dramatic and rhetorical competitions. The highlight of the weekend is certain to be the Spring Certamen. A certamen (pronounced kur tah’men), is a competition for students of Latin (although being a Latin student is not a prerequisite for entering). The competition tests their knowledge of Latin language and grammar, Roman culture, history, mythology, daily life, literature and geography as they compete against students from other schools. Students compete in teams of one to four, and are sorted by the level of Latin they are studying: I, II, III and Advanced. The format is similar to that of the television game show Jeopardy. When a question is posed, the first team to answer it correctly scores points. The students have been busy brushing up their Vergil, Julius Caesar, Ovid Catellus and Cicero.
“This school’s Latin program has grown quite a bit in the last few years,” says Kunz. “Sarah [Kilmon], Lillian [Zhao] and Mary [Prochaska] have been incredibly dedicated, and their hard work has enabled the school to host the first-ever statewide convention on the Eastern Shore.”
“I think our hard work and dedication to this event have paid off,” said Zhao. Easton High School hosted a regional certamen in the spring of 2013, whose success helped to bring the statewide convention to Easton. “We’ve been known by the other schools to have the best certamens.”
Carpe Diem is a well-known Latin maxim meaning “Seize the day.” We’re certainly seizing the day this year,” says Sarah Kilmon.
For more information about the Easton High School Latin Club or the upcoming MDJCL Statewide Convention, contact Inna Kunz at [email protected].
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