Brendan P. Walsh

Few things have made as great an impact on my life than my Latin studies as a student at Grosse Pointe South.  I got a reminder of that today.

The Latin program at South is one of the crown jewels in our district’s history.  Yes, I’ve heard it all before, that Latin is a “dead language”, but it’s funny what a life it has for something so dead.

Today South hosted the state’s fall convention of the Junior Classical League.  There are state and local chapters of the JCL.  Fall and Spring Conventions on the state level are the norm, then a national convention in the summer.

The number of schools offering Latin has certainly, and sadly, dwindled.  But it’s an impressive group.  South has always had a noteworthy Latin program.  The other schools there today were Catholic Central, Country Day, University of Detroit, East Grand Rapids, and East Kentwood.  I’m here to tell you, that’s not a “B list” of schools.  Those are some of the most respected in the state.  And we hosted them here at South.

I took Latin sort of on a whim as a freshman at South.  Maybe it was my Catholic upbringing or something that drew me to it.  I remember really liking Greek mythology as well.  My grade school experience was spent mostly diagramming sentences, and I think that strong background helped me quite a bit as a Latin student.

But more than anything was our teacher then, Ward Christlieb.  Anyone that had Ward loved him.  He was warm, caring, gentlemanly, insanely innocent, and pretty much the best Latin teacher this state has ever seen.  I’m not kidding.

For four years, the South Latin Club would go to these state events, where they would have tests and quiz bowl (Certamen) sessions – and we won everything and had a great time doing it.  It doesn’t get much better in terms of learning and having fun. And we had a lot of fun.  I am certain many students took Latin just for that reason.

By the time I was a senior, and president of South’s Latin Club, it was the largest club at Grosse Pointe South.  We not only did well in these academic competitions, but Ward set a great tone of our club doing charitable work.  He did it right.  Nobody did it better.

So when I started serving on the Board I was eager to see that Latin was still alive and well.  It had gone through some rough times.  Ward had retired just before my senior year.  It was near it’s last legs until current Latin teacher, David Smith, came along.  David’s been great.  He’s got it in his bones.  Today at the convention he was dressed up in full Roman legionnaire regalia.  He’s put his heart an soul into – and has seen the returns.  Last spring he was named by the University of Michigan as the outstanding  Latin teacher in the state.  That was really special for me to see.

I bring a good deal of personal history with the district to my Board service.  Knowing this history, our history, is important.  Latin at South is just something we have to do.  It makes us who we are. It makes us special and different.  This is why I donate every $30 I “earn” per meeting as a Board member to the Latin Club of Grosse Pointe South.  Every dime I would get for doing this, which isn’t much, I give to them.  They were thankful for that and the Latin Club presented me with a nice card and tee-shirt today.

Thanks, Latin Club.  I’ll wear it with pride.

Valete, discipuli!