Texas Junior Classical League

The Texas State Junior Classical League (TSJCL) is a branch of the National Junior Classical League (NJCL), an organization dedicated to the study of Classics, namely Latin and Greek. Formed in 1936 and sponsored by the American Classical League (ACL), NJCL is the largest classical organization in the world, encompassingly over 50,000 junior and senior high school students.

History

The TSJCL is notorious for many things, among which are the magnitude of its delegation, a penchant for being somewhat less than spirited, an extremely competitive and advanced Latin program, and many talented Certamen coaches and players, giving rise to many notable individuals and scholars within the National Junior Classical League. The current National Certamen Chair, Tom Reed, actually hails from James Madison High School of San Antonio, Texas, and often attends the annual State Convention to help out.

The Texas Certamen program is among the best in the nation, and Texas Certamen teams frequently perform extremely well each year at the National Convention, even so far as the World Series of Certamen (WSOC) is concerned. At the 2007 NJCL Convention held at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville, Texas teacher Adam Williams (formerly of Ohio) and his WSOC team dubbed "JAKT" won the first ever World Series of Certamen competition, earning the coveted prize of the Schearer stick and a case of red bull per team member. This past year at the 2008 NJCL Convention held at Miami University, Texas teachers Jennie Luongo of Area F and William Lee of Area B competed with former TSJCLers Andrew Rist and Lauren Dill on team "Cornua Longa," advancing to the finals and winning the 2nd WSOC competition ever held.

Chapters

The Texas Junior Classical League is divided up into five areas by geographical location, due to its large size. Each area hosts its own area competition prior to the annual state competition, which is hosted by a different high school each year. The five Areas are as follows:

- Area A: Southeast Texas (Houston and surrounding areas)
- Area B: South Texas (San Antonio, Uvalde, Corpus Christi)
- Area C: North Central Texas (Dallas, Ft. Worth, Waco)
- Area D: North West Texas (Lubbock, Amarillo)
- Area F: Central Texas (Austin)

Officers & Board Members

The current 2008 TSJCL Officers are as follows:

- President: Abraham Hashmi
- 1st Vice President: Kristin Adkison
- 2nd Vice President: Omar Ahmed
- Treasurer: Julie Chang
- Secretary: Alex Wiechmann
- Historian: Candice Bradford
- Parliamentarian: Stephanie Cruz
- Webmaster: Julie Lim
- Editor: Sammi Robles

And the State Co-chairs are:

- Shawn Jennings
- William Lee
- Jennie Luongo
- Cindy Ong
- Andrea Stehle

Previous Convention Locations

2008: Atascocita High School
2007: Sandra Day O'Connor HS, San Antonio
2006: Pflugerville HS, Pflugerville
2005: Marcus HS, Flower Mound
2004: Warren HS, San Antonio
2003: Pearland HS, Pearland
2002: Cedar Park HS, Cedar Park
2001: University of North Texas, Denton
2000: Amarillo HS, Amarillo
1999: MacArthur HS, San Antonio
1998: Kingwood HS, Kingwood
1997: Westwood HS, Austin
1996: University of North Texas, Denton
...
1991: North Mesquite HS, Mesquite
1990: UT - San Antonio, San Antonio
1989: Westwood HS, Austin
1988: Caprock HS, Amarillo
...
1980: Austin HS, Austin
1979: North Mesquite HS, Mesquite

External Links

* [http://www.tsjcl.org/ Texas Junior Classical League]
* [http://www.njcl.org/ National Junior Classical League]