The Dean Dynasty
By Abby Almaguer (Summit Country Day)
If you are a member of the Ohio Junior
Classical League, you probably already know
about the Dean family. They have been more
affectionately nicknamed the Dean Dynasty, or
even the Deanasty. The Deans are well known in
the JCL community for their knowledge,
Julia Dean with other former
leadership, and friendly faces. Mr. Dean and his
members of the OJCL board
wife, who taught Latin at Indian Hill High
School, named both of their children after revered Romans. Tullus was named after
the third king of Rome, Tullus Hostilius, and Julia was named after Julius Caesar
(maybe).
Mr. Dean has taught Latin at Summit for twenty years, leading our
nationally recognized program. Before Summit, he taught for ten years, both as a
high school teacher and a graduate student teacher. He served as the OJCL Chair of
Students for nine years and helped teachers and students at convention in any way
possible. Summit awarded Mr. Dean the Leader of Character award and the
Faculty Chair for Distinguished Teaching. Mr. Dean inspires excitement and
enthusiasm for the classics in all of his students.
The Dean kids grew up talking about the classics at home long before they
began taking Latin at school in sixth grade. They did not feel pressured to take
Latin because their parents were teachers but took Latin because both of them
genuinely wanted to. Julia says that she always loved it, but more importantly, it
was “language that I could use to connect with others and join a community- the
OJCL.” This sense of camaraderie that drives all of us to be part of the OJCL
inspired both Julia and Tullus to run to office on the OJCL executive board.
Tullus Dean was OJCL parliamentarian both 2014-2015 and 2016-2017, his
sophomore and senior years. As parliamentarian, his duties included overseeing
Ohio’s voting in the executive board elections at the National Junior Classical
League convention, running all aspects of the elections at the Ohio Junior Classical
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