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Fall 2019 · Torch:U.S. · BRUCE TAYLOR'S CONVENTION ADDRESS
Bruce Taylor
1968-1969 NJCL President
How many of you JCLers are attending your first national convention? How many of you are feeling inspired to continue taking Latin and deepen your involvement in the Junior Classical League?
Fifty-two years ago, and three years after beginning my study of Latin that culminated in majoring in Latin in college and being involved in the Senior Classical League and eventually teaching Latin for a year in seminary, I attended my first National Junior Classical League convention with the delegation from Colorado as the recently-elected state president. I took the derivatives test. I wore my toga. I watched John Fairly preside in the general assemblies. After working hard the next year as president of the Littleton High School Latin Club and editor of the Latin Club bi-weekly
newspaper and president of the Colorado JCL, fifty-one years ago I attended the national convention at Michigan State University and was elected president of the National Junior Classical League. And fifty years ago, after another year of hard work and voluminous correspondence and many planning meetings at the convention site with all sorts of personalities, and attending and speaking at six state JCL conventions, I presided over the national convention at Tulane University in New Orleans.
My study of Latin—five years in junior and senior high school and another three at Northwestern University—has been a major influence in my educational experience and my professional life. There was not a single course of study in which I was ever enrolled since that first day in Latin I class—throughout the remainder of junior and senior high school, in earning a bachelor’s degree
Don McRae, 1967-68 NJCL President
Dennis Webb, 1969-70 NJCL President
Bruce Taylor, 1968-69 NJCL President
John Farley, 1966-67 NJCL President
and a law degree and a master of divinity and a PhD--that my background in Latin did not prove to be a distinct advantage. And there has not been a single day of my career as an attorney and a minister of word and sacrament and now, as of two days ago, a published author, that the leadership, planning, and
Bruce Taylor ddresses the 2019 NJCL Convention at North Dakota State University on July 28th
Photo Kurt Ristroph