Eighteen Holy Comforter middle school students recently attended the 2023 Florida Junior Classical League State Latin Forum in Orlando, Florida competing in contests such as Certamen, solo costumes, original drawings, classical paintings, posters, original orations, pentathlon, mythology, audio/visual media, and Latin vocabulary, the group claimed the Creative Sweepstakes Third Place award (junior division) and the Overall Sweepstakes Fifth Place award (junior division) at the Forum awards ceremony. They competed against students from 40 school Latin programs across Florida.

The Forum, which was held March 30-April 1, had the theme of “Amor animi arbitrio sumitur non ponitur,” - “We choose to love, we do not choose to cease loving.”

The team, led by Latin teacher Brian Burton and HOPE teacher Lindsay Cheesborough, included students Andrew Barnes, Day Brown, Everett Beckley, Ricky Blais, Pierce Boyett, Paeton Cheesborough, Camryn Chittenden, Charlie Coughlin, Bridges Ellis (not able to attend), Ellis Howard, Isabella Krizner, Luke Levesque, Bo Long, Reese Meadows, Andrew Nordby, Peter Nordby, Isabella Prado, Elijah Shearer, and Kelan Yoshikawa.

A special thank you to our parent chaperones: Mandy Lycett, Amanda Shearer, Rachel Nordby, Houston Barnes, and Kristen Krizner. The team was assisted by Shawn and Rhaena Coughlin, Stephanie Ellis, Becky Prado, Mako and Brenda Yoshikawa, and Dr. Craig Bebergal of the Florida Virtual School.