Latin Lovers Emerging in the Delta

Austin Walker's Latin Class at Simmons High School

Hollandale, Mississippi is a small town in the Mississippi Delta. But as MPB's Ron Brown reports, now it's on the map as one of the best places in the nation to learn Latin.

In Mr. Walker’s class at Simmons High School they are in search of nouns, adjectives, subject and verbs… the skeleton frame of all language.

“Somebody raise your hand and tell me, what do we start off with? Horace?" "We look for the verb first”

Austin Walker is a second year teacher in Hollandale where advantages are scarce. Ninety percent, for example, of the 200 Simmons students qualify for the school’s free lunch program. But here in Mr. Walker’s class they not only know the meaning of the word excel, they can trace it to it’s Latin origin and pronounce it. Because here in the heart of the Mississippi Delta, nine high school students are hard at work studying Latin.

“One of the reasons I wanted to present the Latin class was because I knew that there were students of exceptional ability everywhere. Most of all in the Mississippi delta. Who through a dearth of opportunities hadn’t been able to prove that they had the talent. And that’s what this class was about. Giving them a playing field to demonstrate that they were equal to if not better than everyone else in the nation.”

That’s not just tough talk from a proud and biased teacher. He and the class have the proof to back it up.

“There were 28 schools in Mississippi took this national Latin exam all together and when you rank the schools by total number of national awards, total awards by students who took the test, Simmons High School comes in first in the state. In terms of award rate.”

First in the state for public schools, and in Hollandale, where the median income for a family is twenty five thousand dollars, and there are no private schools to send their children to even if they could afford one, Walker’s Latin class finished higher than the private schools as well.

“I mean they did it. They blew everybody else out of the water.”

Sixteen year old Bianca Johnson is one of the Latin students.

“I didn’t know so many of us would do as well as we did, coming from a small place like we did. Everyone was like, where’s Hollandale? So, hey, we’re on the map now. Look what we did.”

Sixty six percent of Walker’s class took home awards in the state Latin testing, including 17-year-old Ulysses Aldridge..

“A lot of people think it’s a dead language, that there’s no reason for it. When in actually, most of our language actually comes from Latin, so it would be kind of good to look into it, especially if you’re going into the medical field, most of the words they still use come straight from the Latin.”

And to prove that the state tests were no fluke, there was one more test to prove just how well Walker’s delta kids had learned their Latin.

“Then we took the national Latin exam that’s taken by 160-thousand students throughout the world. And there are four levels of awards, a first place gold medal, a second place silver, third and fourth. And we had one first place, one second place, three thirds, and one fourth.”

The first place gold medal, meaning he finished in the top ten percent of the nation, went to 16-year-old Xavier Clay, a young man not known for showing emotions.

“It was the first time anybody saw me smile about anything. I couldn’t really tell my mom. She passed when I was nine. But I told my dad about it. He was proud of me. He’s proud of just about anything I do.”

The pride has extended to the state capitol where Mississippi legislators honored the Simmons High School Latin scholars. And the recognition may not be over yet. Walker has been trying to get the ear of a famous person who is well known for applauding the hard work of good students who triumph over adversity. And it doesn’t hurt that she’s from Mississippi.

“I’ve sent a lot of emails to Oprah, but she hasn’t said anything yet. These are kids that deserve to be flown to Chicago and put on her show. They’ve done something that is unparalleled, as far as I’m concerned. And they need to be recognized for it.”

And if you think it’s a long shot to get an invitation from Oprah, Walker says just remember the kids at Simmons high are no strangers to beating the odds. For MPB News, I’m Ron Brown