For the first time in school history, West Shore won the certamen competition in the top three tiers at the Regional Latin Forum held at Holy Trinity High School on Saturday. In addition, eighth-grader Roxy U., sophomore Daryn Cook, freshman Chris Jenkins and eighth-grader Jack B. placed first on the Intermediate Latin team; seventh-graders Izzy P., Jack Q., Christian G. and Skye V. placed second on the Beginners Latin team; and sophomore Alyssa Holmquist along with freshmen Bailey Wong, Andrew Kohler and Justin Foster finished second in the Advanced Latin competition.

The first place team automatically qualifies for the State Forum in Orlando on April 19-21.

Latin teacher Tim O’Flaherty appeared visibly pleased with the results.

“I don’t have all stats officially until I get the results,” O’Flaherty said. “Having said that, however, the really big news is that our three certamen teams rocked.”

Earning first place in certamen is something new to West Shore.

“It took us all three years to get here,” O’Flaherty said.

Schools from throughout Brevard County attended the event, and competition categories included academic, athletic, certamen and creative. Certamen is a quiz bowl in which teams of four are asked general questions about Latin as a language, Roman culture, Roman history and Roman mythology.

Foster said his team could have performed event better.

“We could have buzzed in when we knew the answer instead of not buzzing in when we knew the answer,” the freshman said.

Some of the day’s other highlight’s included a decorative neck ornament made from copper wiring and accentuated with jasper stones which was created by junior Arianna Issitt; this tied for first place in the Latin Advanced Creative Miscellaneous category with junior Gabriel Schwartz’s chain-mail shirt. 

By Sirish Ojha

Editor’s note: Brevard Public Schools policy prohibits the inclusion of middle-schoolers’ last names on district-sponsored websites.