Salvete Omnes! Every year schools across West Tennessee participate in the Fall Festivus in November. This day-long convention is comparable to the Mid-State convention and the Knoxville Latin Fair. This year’s Fall Festivus was held at Houston High School in Germantown, TN. Fall Festivus is a day of fun-filled activities for all cohorts of Latin enthusiasts. Starting the day, we had an introductory speech from Houston High’s Sponsor, Dr. Abigail Simone, and Houston High officers. We also had West Tennessee TJCL Student Officers (Akbar Latif, Saksham Saksena, and Ann Wilson) give speeches introducing TJCL and the book drive they hosted at Festivus. Moving on in the day, students took academic tests. Fall Festivus offers two distinct academic tests: The Vocabulary Test and The Mythology Test. After taking their tests, students go in all directions to different activities to entertain all cohorts. For those enterprising scholars, they could continue their Latin academic pursuits by participating in the Mythology Spelling Bee. Those itching to show off their superior athletic skills went to the Olympika events. From Javelin to Discuss and even Trigon, it was a perfect (or at least near perfect) re-creation of the ancient Olympic games. The artistically inclined Latin students participated in the many dramatic arts and fine arts competitions. Fall Festivus offered an art competition, in which participants could create any form art as long as it related to the Aeneid (the theme of this year’s Fall Festivus); a costume contest, in which you could represent your favorite character from mythology; an Airing of Grievances, where participants (taking on the role of their favorite Aeneid character) dramatically expressed their woes to their offender; and more. We even had a meme contest, allowing students to channel their inner creativity. Finally, the aspiring engineers constructed authentic Roman catapults, of varying sizes, to take part in the Catapult Contest. If all these contests failed to interest a participant, the Latin scholar could go see a Classical-themed movie or solve mysteries at the Escape Room. After a great fun-filled day for all, it was time to celebrate the winners. I had the pleasure of handing out awards to all the accomplished Latin scholars. I was highly impressed by the great achievements of my school and all the other schools across the Memphis area. As such, I highly encourage all of you to attend the Fall Festivus next year and come to the TJCL State Convention in Memphis, in which you will get to participate in similar events.
Written by Saksham Saksena TJCL Communications Coordinator Houston JCL Consul