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ERHS JCL Teams Came, Saw, Conquered State Competition

Eleanor Roosevelt High School won big at the Maryland Junior Classical League (JCL) State convention held recently in Easton, Md., with the teams from ERHS sweeping the novice, intermediate and advanced levels. The mission of the National JCL (njcl.org) is “to encourage an appreciation of the language, literature, and culture of ancient Greece and Rome.” Eleven of the two dozen JCL member schools in Maryland schools were represented at the state convention.

Of the two-day event, ERHS Latin teacher Matthew Moore said, “This year’s leadership did a spectacular job getting all the teams organized, trained-up and focused. Amelia Komisar-Bury was the co-consul so she was the general responsible for our success and the really enjoyable trip we had this year.”

Komisar-Bury stated that the club “spent over a month of Wednesdays creating art pieces, setting up campaigns, and going over logistical strategy for the convention. On the Certamen (certamen is Latin for competition) side, we just kept up our weekly practice to make sure that our teams were ready.” She added, “Latin has easily doubled my vocabulary. In addition, I have greater knowledge of biological and legal terms than the majority of my peers due to my experience with classical roots.”

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Teams from ERHS took first place at all academic levels in Certamen, a Jeopardy-like competition devoted to Greek and Roman history and culture and Latin linguistics. Celebrating their triumph over ten other schools at the JCL state convention is the ERHS freshman team: front, from left: Ryley Komisar-Bury, Andrea Fontaine and Rebecca Gardner ;and rear, from left: Jan Lapira and Annika Olson. Photo by Matthew Moore.