Freshman Arjun Iyer, won 1st place in

Latin Area, last February, and is holding his

Latin textbook from which he studies from.
Throughout highschool, he hopes to be in
the Latin Club and compete every year. “[I]
usually [study] maybe 15 minutes but some
days I don’t do it at all,” Iyer said.

Stress for Success

Arjun Iyer wins 1st place at Area
Students were pacing, legs were shaking, and answers were out. Sadness filled
the room as each person looked at the answer sheet. He was getting most of them
wrong, he knew he couldn’t win. As awards were getting called out, each person around
him was getting placed. Heavy breathing, heart pounding, fingers cracking as it was
time for first place to be announced. His last chance to see if he placed. “… and first
place goes to Arjun Iyer.”
Freshman Arjun Iyer, a member of the Latin Club, competed at Texas State
Junior Classical League (TJCL) Area C Competition (commonly referred to as Area) last
February. Although this was Iyer’s first competition, he was able to win first place in
Latin Vocabulary. Throughout his highschool career, he hopes to keep competing in
more Latin competitions.
He competed in both vocabulary and grammar, and ended up winning 1st place
in vocabulary and 2nd place in grammar. He went on to State to win 4th place in Latin
oratory.
“I thought since my grade in Latin was pretty good, I thought that maybe I can
compete and maybe I can get 3rd or 5th place or something and then I never expected
to get 1st in Area,” Iyer said.
TJCL was first founded 70 years ago in Texas. Other states started to join around
68 years ago.
“I have been here for 14 years and the Latin Club had been open before I came
here,” Latin Teacher Courtney Herring said. “As far as Hebron has been opened we
have gone to Area (regional) and state every year and nationals. JCL, Junior Classical
League, that's what the Latin Club is. The state of Texas, has the oldest chapter that
founded the JCL, and there has been 68 national conventions.”
For Latin Competitions, preparation is mostly done individually. In Area there are
only individual competitions, but in State and National competitions there are team
competitions. Since Hebron has a blocked schedule, it is harder for them to prepare for
competitions as students take Latin 1 in the fall and Latin 2 in the spring and not only
Latin 1 for the whole year. That is why, for Hebron Latin Club, the students only
compete in individual competitions as there is less time to prepare.
“For his events, spoken events, I made a recording of the passage he had to
memorize so he could listen to it,” Herring said. “He got a copy of it and could come in
and practice with me. For things like his vocabulary test, grammar test, those kind of
things is a lot of individual study time. It’s like the spelling bee.”
Latin competitions are split into the level that you are competing in. This means
that students of all ages can compete amongst each other. Schools like Marcus, Flower
Mound, Greenhill Academy, etc all compete with each other.
“I was Latin 1,” Iyer said. “So I was competing with all Latin 1’s and those were
different ages, so it could be a 10th grader or a middle schooler but we all learn all the
same stuff.”
Area competitions are 1 day long and State competitions are 2 days long. For
nationals, the competition takes 1 week and is held in the last week of july.
“I have 5 kids going to nationals,” Herring said. “5 kids got first in state so their
trip is paid for but you can pay for yourself to go, you just can't compete in certain things
depending on how you did in state.”
In the beginning of the year the Latin Club hosted meetings and had flyers
around the school for students to join.
“I wanted to join the Latin Club because I wanted to join some type of club,” Iyer
said. “I just wanted to get involved in something… and that was just something I saw
first.”
As Latin members have Latin Club, extracurricular activities, and classes, it can
be very hard to balance it all. Since most Latin competitions are self study. AP Human
Geography Teacher Kelley Ferguson thinks Iyer is a great student that loves to learn.
“He’s not just enthusiastic about school for the grade, like he definitely does care
about the grades, but he genuinely cares about learning different topics and expanding
his knowledge,” Ferguson said. “The enthusiasm usually helps bring in other students
that are around him to want to get involved in the content and learn more.”