Over Thanksgiving break, Flint Hill’s Classics Club attended the 2024 VJCL State Convention in Richmond, which lasted from Sunday, November 24, to Monday, November 25. The VJCL (Virginia Junior Classical League) is a national organization of over 4000 high school students who study Latin, Greek, and the classical humanities. The organization offers unique opportunities to students and has been promoting the study of Latin and classics for over 60 years.
According to the VJCL website, the VJCL State Convention offers Latin and Classics students the opportunity to exchange ideas and compete in a variety of contests, all while meeting Latin students from schools across the state. Activities at the Convention included a Roman banquet, various contests, a dance, karaoke, impromptu art, sight reading, creating Roman architecture, a talent show, and more.
Flint Hill’s delegation of students participated in a number of activities, one of them being the Spirit Competition. In the Spirit Competition, students from each school performed group cheers with their fellow delegates based on the annual theme. Cheers were judged based on unity, cohesion, enthusiasm, etc. This year’s theme was non scholae sed vitae discimus (“We learn not for school, but for life”), and Flint Hill’s delegation brought home an exciting third-place win! This was especially impressive, as the delegation was the smallest among the extra-large delegations they were competing against, with 35 delegates total, compared to the largest delegation in the group with 79 delegates.
Additionally, Flint Hill’s participants competed in VJCL’s academic testing contests, which included a number of multiple-choice tests on different topics of Latin, such as Roman history, mythology, and classical arts. Each student took at least one test, with the maximum being two. Some tests even offered cash prizes to the winners, such as the Decathlon. The Classics Club held multiple meetings prior to the Convention in order to prepare and ultimately won a grand total of 92 awards.
The arts and creative arts competitions were also prominent activities, and many of Flint Hill’s students created their own art projects at home to bring to the Convention for judging. Several students participated in additional contests such as the Costume Contest (creating a costume for an Ancient Greek or Latin character based on the annual theme, Oracles and their Prophecies), Latin Oraty (reading a Latin passage aloud from memory), English Oratory (writing and reading an English passage aloud from memory), Dramatic Interpretation (reading a Latin passage aloud from memory and acting it out), and Storytelling (writing a story of an event in Roman history or Greek mythology).
The 2024 VJCL State Convention was an unforgettable experience for every student in attendance. The Convention offered a large variety of competitions, activities, and leadership opportunities. Flint Hill’s delegation won numerous awards, truly experiencing the event to the fullest. “Overall, we did really well. We had a bigger delegation than in past years, which is very exciting because more people are coming. People had a lot of fun, and we won a ton of awards; we also got third this year for the Spirit competition in extra large delegations, which was really amazing”, says Classics Club President Junior Mackenzie Sanford. “I think it went really well, and a lot of people became interested in classics too.”
