Volume XIII Issue I Fall 2009

The CoJCL Torch non est ad astra mollis e terris via

Fall Forum 2009 Come join CoJCL for a day of Certamen, Latin games and food, and more.

Saturday, October 10, 2009 2:00 PM – 5:00 PM Fairview High School Fall Forum has always been a fun event for the Junior Classical League, but this year it promises to be even better. In addition to the

traditional Certamen competition, JCLers will have the opportunity to read Latin books such as Harrius Potter, try Roman food, and enter an impromptu art competition.

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Meet the Officers Get to know your 2009-2010 CoJCL Board a little better.

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NJCL Delegates Results from the 2009 National Junior Classical League Convention.

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Fun Stuff Pictures from NJCL and CoJCL conventions and Latin puzzles.

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Officers

Meet your 2009 – 2010 Colorado Junior

Classical League officers.

Hank Winterscheidt President

Hey Guys, I'm Hank Winterscheidt and I'm the current president of CoJCL. I’m a junior at Regis Jesuit HS and I'm in my third year of La-tin. I play football and soccer for Regis and I play the drums for the Colorado Conservatory for the Jazz Arts. My favorite JCL memory would have to be trying to chug a gallon of water at last year's convention.

Heather Job Vice President

Hey, my name is Heather Job and I'm your CoJCL vice president. I'm a junior at Cherry Creek, and I'm in Latin III this year. I'm pretty much a nerd all around, I spend most of my time at marching band, speech and debate, choir, and Latin stuff. My favorite Latin related memory was probably convention last year. It was a blast. I love convention. Two days of Latin. If I call that relaxing, am I a dork? Probably.

Mary Kent Secretary

My name is Mary Kent. I am the CoJCL Secretary. I am currently a senior at Fairview High School and am in my fourth year of Latin. I pledge my allegiance to my school and my Latin teacher, Ms. Gibert very faithfully. Though I have attended Latin Convention every year I've been in Latin and have had an outstanding time at each of them, my favorite memory is the CoJCL State Convention 2009 dance. I am a fool for dancing and could dance all day if I wanted to.

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Erika Davidoff Editor

Salvete. I’m Erika Davidoff, your 09-10 CoJCL editor. I attended two state conventions with the Ricks Center and am now a Latin II freshman at Heritage High School. My job is to publish the Torch as often as ne-cessary and to keep the email list and the new Face-book page and group updated. My favorite convention memories are the Latin Oratory and throwing snowballs at the ceiling. I also love mountain climbing.

Officers

Connor Lehr Historian

I'm Connor Lehr, the CoJCL Historian. I am a Latin 2 student at Regis Jesuit High School. As a 15 year old sophomore I have gone to one previous convention and hope to make this year better than last. My favorite memory of CoJCL is going from the steaming hot pool area into the snow that was falling from above.

Ben Brown Machinator

Cogito ergo nihil est.

Zach Palermo Parliamentarian

Wait, who’s this guy? I thought Adam Safadi was Parliamentarian. Turns out, when Safadi won national office, the state office of Par-liamentarian was left vacant. As a result, you’re stuck with this guy as your Parliamentarian all year. I am currently a senior at The Classical Academy, and have completed all four levels of Latin that were offered at my school. Probably my favorite JCL memory was the skit TCA put together for State Convention last year. Cast as Hades, I wore emotastic amounts of eye makeup and spoke in a gravelly rasp. I have enjoyed my 5 years of JCL so far, and hope that my 6th is the best of them all.

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Congratulations 2009 NJCL Delegates Kirk McDonald, Adam Safadi, Patrick Hunger, Emily Skrutskie

This year, four students represented Colorado at the annual National Junior Classical League convention in July. Adam Safadi from Fariview High School, Kirk McDonald from Fairview High School, Patrick Hunger of Cherry Creek High School, and Emily Skrutskie, formerly from Boulder High School, attended the California convention. Collectively, they led Colorado to victory in the spirit competition for small states. They also won several individual awards. During the convention, the students also attended many colloquia, on varying topics, including but not limited to those concerning officer duties, authors, such as Steven Saylor and Kelli Stanley, and promoting Latin in the community. Additional congratulations go out to Adam Safadi, the 2009 CoJCL Parliamentarian, who was elected the 2009-2010 NJCL Technology Coordinator!

Patrick Hunger won first place in watercolor art and placed on many academic tests Kirk McDonald won third place for his pencil drawing and placed highly in several academic tests Adam Safadi won sixth place for traditional photography, seventh place for Latin sight reading, tenth place for Latin oratory, and placed in the top thirty on several tests Emily Skrutskie placed in the top ten on several academic tests and placed in many performing arts

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The event will run from 2:00 to 5:00 on October 10 at Fairview High School. Fall Forum is a great way to meet fellow Latin students from across the state and prepare for state convention in April, as well as exploring fun Latin application in today’s world.

Snacks will be served at the Forum. The event is absolutely free.

National Office Adam Safadi Fairview High School

Salvete amici!

Stepping into my first day of Latin my freshman year I had no idea what to expect. However, as soon as my teacher told our class about the Junior Classical League, I became interested. When I attended state convention as a Latin I freshman, I truly fell in love with the classics. Since then I have done all I could to get involved with the JCL, culminating in the events from last year’s state and national conventions.

As (most) of you know, at last year’s state convention I ran for, and won, the office of Parliamentarian, with the promise to bring the state closer to the national level. This past summer, I attended my second National Junior Classical League Convention, running for the office of National Technology Coordinator and winning. Now I hope to not only familiarize CoJCLers with the National Level, but also help promote in Colorado interest in the Classics as well as the NJCL Convention.

In addition to this National Office and being my school’s JCL President, I do enjoy participating in numerous other clubs at the school and state levels. I will be a four year member of my school’s Forensics and Debate team. I also am an active member in the state Youth in Government program, our school’s knowledge bowl team, and the National Honours Society. In addition to playing violin in the school orchestra and serving as orchestra president, I am a member of the Front Range Youth Symphony and a five year volunteer of the Arvada Teen Court.

Nevertheless, my love of Latin overrides all else. I can’t wait to get to meet all of you throughout this year! If any of you ever have any questions for me about nationals, please feel free to contact me at Latin_Nerd@comcast.net

E corde, Adam Safadi 2009-2010 NJCL Technology Coordinator

Has your school’s Latin club done anything unique or exciting in celebration of everyone’s favorite language? If so, write a short article about it and submit it to the Torch! See

submission information on page eight for more details.

School Latin Clubs

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More Than Dead Heather Job Cherry Creek High School

I checked my suitcase, making sure I had remembered every item. Neatly folded in place of accumulated Girl Scout shirts (Cookie Diva! It’s always sunny at Girl Scout camp!) were a stack of tees I had purchased at convention. The way I figured it, not only would phrases such as fortuna nobis vi animi tantum frenabitur assert my intellectual dominance over the little kiddies, they would also challenge the girls to ask me, “What on earth does your shirt say?” at which point I could use the snooty voice people seem to typecast all Latin geeks to possess and lecture, “oh dear child, that is a quote from the poet Aesop, and it means the level of our success if limited only by our imagination… when you are older, perhaps you will understand.” Yes, I was quite looking forward to being that cool counselor who was a genius, a Latin-speaking fountain of wisdom. On the second day of camp, I donned my shirt from state convention 2008, non nobis solum nati sumus. I was ready to answer all sorts of questions, but as I trooped ahead of my fellow counselors-in-training to the dining hall, the only question any of them asked was, “Jellybean, can you please slow down?” No, I thought defiantly. I cannot slow down! I have brains to flaunt! But a whole day went by, and not a single camper asked me what the phrase stamped across my back meant. It wasn’t just disappointing. It was devastating! Were none of these children remotely interested in language? I went to bed resolved to try again the next day with my si hoc legere potes shirt. One girl asked me a question: was my shirt in Spanish? Because “si” is Spanish, but none of the rest was. No, I told her. It’s Latin. Oh, she responded. That’s a dead language, right? False! If anyone is bothering to learn the language, obviously it isn’t dead. Now this is going to sound really nerdy - like shove me in a locker nerdy - but I’m going to go for it. SPOILER WARNING - if you haven’t read Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows yet, a) you are a poor Harry Potter fan and b) this next bit may be a tad confusing. See, Latin is like Lord Voldemort. A lot of people hate it, but it has a small, devout group of followers who want nothing more than to force their lord upon the rest of the world. And Latin has about a bazillion Horcruxes. Latin has split itself into a bunch of living, very hard to destroy languages. Latin will never truly be dead until languages such as French, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, and our very own English are dead. Unlike Voldemort, however, Latin is a very good thing. But it’s useless if people see Latin students as snooty elitists. So I saw what I needed to do. I needed to take a more laid-back approach on opening the girls’ minds to my favorite ancient language. Instead of imparting Aesop’s wisdom on seven year olds, I would greet them with a “salvete, puellae!” Instead of trying to explain conjugation, I would count off cookies and other snacks in Latin. And you know what I found? Showing them Latin in small, digestible chunks made them more willing to listen to what I had to say on the roots of civilization and language than if I pulled the snooty card. Plus, it didn’t make them feel stupid. The quickest way to make people disregard whatever you have to say is by making them feel stupid. Although Latin is gaining in popularity at my high school, it doesn’t seem to be snowballing as much elsewhere. And with this economic crisis floating over everyone’s heads like a black cloud, budget cuts have to be made. The first things to suffer will be the arts and the obscure languages. If we want Latin in its original form to live on, we’re going to have to admit that learning an ancient language doesn’t make us smarter than everyone else, and we’re going to have to make it accessible. More people will take Latin when it’s apparent that you don’t have to be a stuck up know it all to participate.

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From top to bottom, left to right: Adam and Emily eat lunch at the NJCL Convention, Adam delivers his campaign speech at the NJCL Convention, Regis students chill at the CoJCL convention, Patrick has spirit, Kirk shows off his Colorado warpaint, running the Bazaar at the CoJCL convention, hello JCL friends!

NJCL photos copyright Adam Safadi of Fairview High School CoJCL photos copyright Morgan Jones of Regis Jesuit High School

Photo Page

The CoJCL Torch Fall 2009

The CoJCL Torch

Do you want to write something for the Torch? Do you have any pictures from JCL events? Has your school’s Latin club done anything interesting recently? Please e-mail all submissions to:

ed.invicta@gmail.com

I try to publish as much as I possibly can in every issue – if I can’t fit it into the next issue I’ll save it for later. Please keep articles shorter than 1000 words. Include your name and school with all submissions, including articles, puzzles and photos, to be credited.

Roman Numeral Sudoku

Fill in numerals from I-IX so that each numeral appears once in every row, column, and 9x9 box.

If you’re able to solve this, commend yourself.

CoJCL Co-Chairs: Amy Sommer asommer@cherrycreekschools.org, Mary Zang mzang2@cherrycreekschools.org, Missy Johnson mjohnson@regisjesuit.com, Jim Broderick-King jbking@regisjesuit.com

Please contact Erika Davidoff, CoJCL Editor, for Torch questions, suggestions, or submissions. ed.invicta@gmail.com

CoJCL Facebook Group

If you haven’t already, please join the new CoJCL Facebook group! The group is a great way to keep in contact with the CoJCL officers and learn about important