Next Wednesday the Latin Voices choir will be traveling to the National Cathedral to sing at the 14th Annual High School Choir Festival! The choir will be joined by 10 other choirs from around the district to sing Movement II of Vivaldi’s Gloria: Et in Terra Pax and to sing Normal Luboff’s Wade in the Water. They will also be singing Charles Gounod’s Ave Maria. The Latin voices choir will include students in grades nine through twelve who have performed together throughout the year. (Photo courtesy of the Cathedral Choir Society website)
Last Saturday, Latin’s Great Debaters participated in the fifth tournament of the year. The event, located at Alice Deal MS, featured several important wins for our team. Amal Buba earned first place in the novice speaker prize. Belle Steinberg earned fourth place and Claire Campbell earned fifth in the novice speaker category. Brooke Roberson won tenth place in the novice division. Other participants included varsity debaters Jackson Lewis and D’Andrew Person, junior varsity debaters Ife and Dami Akinsanya and Maxwell Burton and Aaron Smith, and novice debaters Niamh O’Donovan, Greer McPhie, Aaron Gill, and Serenity Johnson, Wyatt Mitchell and Lena Webb, and Jonah Cohen and Ahmad West-Bey. In February, varsity debaters Jackson Lewis and D’Andre Person will attend the Pennsbury Regional Tournament in Pennsylvania. The team is coached by Ms. Lee-Bey.
This past weekend the Indoor Track team traveled to Liberty University to compete at the VA Showcase Track Meet. Multiple national records were broken at this meet this past weekend. Runners Cecily Bufkin, Raven Berry, Chima Ukaegbu, and Immanuel Charles all ran personal bests in their events. Junior Luke Tewalt had a major personal best in the 2-mile, running a 9:20, which ranks him 6th nationally and also qualifies him for Nationals! Junior Oliver Spiva ran an exceptional race in the 1600m, with a time of 4:37 and is now currently 3rd in the city in the 1600m! The team is coached by Dean Callum.
On Monday, students and teachers were hard at work, showing that Martin Luther King Day is a day of work and service, not just vacation. Students made soup and sandwiches for the homeless and distributed food, designed Valentine’s Day cards for senior citizens, and helped with cleaning, painting, and outdoor tasks to beautify Washington Latin’s campus. The day is organized by social worker Ms. Foster with help from several teachers and their families. Thank you to all who participated and helped give the day additional meaning.
Ms. Rose took our school’s Certamen team to a tournament in Virginia this week. Our team of fifth and sixth graders, many of whom were some of the youngest participants in the event, scored well in their divisions, with one team earning a first place finish in the final round. The tournament was at the Flint Hill School. After the first three rounds, the team of Jack Pearson, Henry Dunne, Wesley Freed, and Michael Tichy placed 4th out of 10 teams, and the team of Niamh O’Donovan, Alice Pittard, Sophia Smith, Liam Saxon, and Ben Fisher placed 1st. The classical trivia based tournament included facts about classical civilizations and its peoples, languages, and cultures.
