2008 ICC Lifetime Achievement Awards

The Illinois Classical Conference Lifetime Achievement Award was established in 2006 in order to recognize those individuals who have made outstanding contribution to ICC and to the promotion of the Classics in the State of Illinois over at least a ten year period. The intent of this award is to celebrate careers marked by special accomplishments for the Classical world. Previous recipients of this award include: Lou and Marie Bolchazy, Charles Speck of Southern Illinois University, Elisa Denja of the Baker Demonstration School and Judy Hayes of New Trier High School. I would ask that any of these individuals present to stand and be recognized. They have set a high standard for future honorees and their careers demonstrate how fortunate we are to have had many dedicated laborers working in the fields of Classics in our state. This year we would like to recognize several more of these faithful friends.

Our first honoree to be recognized with the Lifetime Achievement award studied under the famed Miss Fox when she was a student at Monmouth College. I remember meeting our honoree when I was there on campus as a high school student participating in the State Latin Contest, and she was helping to hand out to the participants a small replica of the Capitoline wolf with her twins, which she had helped Miss Fox bring back from a trip to Italy earlier in the year.

After our honoree finished her B.A. degree at Monmouth College, she earned her M.A. at Loyola University Chicago, completing significant additional graduate work as well. She has recently retired from Barrington High School, after years of keeping the program vibrant. Her years of teaching also included a stint in Geneseo, and she has also taught as an instructor at Loyola University Chicago and Northern Illinois University. In the course of this career, she has received ICC’s Teacher of the Year Award in 1989, the Illinois Lt. Governor’s Award in 1990, and CAMWS’ Good Teacher Award in 1996.

She has been a stalwart member of the Illinois Classical Conference, serving as president in 1987 and 1988, and regularly presenting at the conference programs. Amongst many areas of contribution, she was instrumental in the idea of the Pedagogy Conference. She has served on the awards committee for numerous years. In fact, the committee had to find a way to remove her gracefully so they could bestow this award on her.

She has continued her activity with Classics as an editor for Bolchazy-Carducci Publishers, where she has overseen particularly development of high school materials. She has managed L and L Enterprises since 1992, providing instructional materials for Latin and French teachers. You are likely to see her at conferences in either of these capacities, but also as a presenter on Latin pedagogy throughout the nation. She has written several books for instructional use in the classroom, as well, and designed resources such as her libelli, stickers, pencils, and posters. She co-authored Vergil: A LEGAMUS Transitional Reader (2004) with Tom Sienkewicz, and has been heavily involved in the four-year process of bringing out Bolchazy-Carducci’s new Latin text, Latin for the New Millenium.

Among her many speaking engagements, was the lecture she delivered for the annual Bernice Fox Lecture at Monmouth College in 1993-94, titled “Classics Across the Curriculum: A Practitioner’s View.”

One of her former students, Michelle Wu, is here tonight, in order to add a few more words: . . . .

LeaAnn has made Miss Fox proud, and we in Illinois are privileged to continue our association with and receive the benefits from her contributions to the teaching of Classics. Join me in congratulating Lea Ann Osburn!

 Our next honoree tonight is actually a native of Indiana but has been a valuable member of the Illinois Classical Conference throughout his life. He is a graduate of Bishop Noll Institute, a private, Roman Catholic high school in Hammond, Indiana, and a parishioner at St. Casimir in Hammond, Indiana, where he is an extraordinary minister of the Eucharist and commentator/lector for the Polish Mass.

He holds three degrees from Loyola University of Chicago, including a Ph.D., as well as a S.T.B. from the Pontifical Faculty of St. Bonaventure in Rome, Italy. As a graduate assistant at Loyola, our honoree taught courses in Latin composition, Classical Epic, Classical Drama, and the Letters of Pliny. From 1971 until 1991 he taught Latin at Archbishop Weber High School in Chicago where he served as the Chair of the Foreign Language Department, the Director of the Honors Program, Yearbook Advisor, and then Assistant Principal for Personnel and Curriculum. While at Weber he was named Illinois Latin Teacher of the Year in 1987. He left Weber in 1991 to care for his aging parents but eventually returned to the classroom to teach Latin at Archbishop Quigley Preparatory Seminary in Chicago where he taught Latin 3, Latin 4, Latin 4: Advanced Placement, Vergil and Introduction to Biblical Greek, served as Chair of the Foreign Language Department and was moderator of the White Eagle Polish Club and the Italian Club until Quigley was closed in 2007 by the Archdiocese of Chicago. He currently teaches Latin at St. Joseph College Seminary for Loyola University.

He has served the Illinois Classical Conference in a number of capacities. For many years he was editor of our newsletter, the Augur. In 1979 he served as President of the Illinois Classical Conference and presided at our meeting at the Continental Regency Hotel in Peoria, Illinois. He has given several papers at our meetings, especially on paleography and on his specialty, Medieval Latin. His most recent paper, entitled “Y1K,” was read at ICC in 2000 and was also presented at Monmouth College. He currently serves as our invocator memoratorque.

He has been active in a number of other classical organizations, including the Chicago Classical Club, which he has served as president, the American Classical League for which he has served on a number of committees, and, especially CAMWS, where he served on the Committee for the Promotion of Latin in 1981-1982. In 1989 he was the recipient of a CAMWS Ovatio in which he was described by Herbert Benario as minister academiae suae et ecclesiae and as studiorum classicorum fautor.

He has been a loyal supporter of the Chicago Public Schools Latin Olympics. For years he has served as a judge of elementary upper grade certamen and sometimes judged high school certamen. In recent years he has been the judge for high school Latin sight reading and, for the 2008 Olympics, he also supplied the Latin texts for that event. 

For all these contributions (and more) to the Illinois Classical Conference and to the field of Classical Studies, we recognize and thank this outstanding vir virtutis magnae. Maximas gratias nobis agimus, William Napiwocki.

The ICC has another honoree to whom we wish to award the Lifetime Achievement bowl in recognition of her many years of service to the classics and to the organization.

She has taught both English and Latin for 34 years -- from 1973 to 2008 -- having earned her B.A. in English and Latin from Indiana University in 1973, as well as a masters in teaching from Indiana University/Purdue University in 1978.

She first became actively involved in Latin organizations during her first year of teaching at Portland Jr. and Sr. High in Jay County, Indiana in 1973, taking students to the Indiana State convention.  She was overwhelmed with the enthusiasm and love for Latin that she witnessed in these students.  Her Latin students were equally thrilled as they produced Plautus' THE ROPE, made floats for homecoming, and enjoyed their teacher's attempts at Italian cooking.

After getting married at the end of the year and taking one year off to tutor her husband Stan in Oklahoma, she returned to Indiana to teach for four years at Decatur Central H.S., again teaching both English and Latin, and staying very active with the Latin Club.  It was during this time that she became involved with the Latin teachers and Bernard Barcio, hosting student workshops at Butler University, and building chariots for several years for contests -- even at the Indy 500 raceway.

She moved to the Chicago area in 1979 when her husband was transferred, suffering the first pains of anguish for leaving her flourishing Latin program in the middle of the summer.

She taught English at Evanston Twp. H.S. for three years, but was delighted to fill in for LeaAnn Osburn at Barrington H.S. during her pregnancy leave -- for the first time teaching only Latin -- and to junior high students as well.  She herself became mother to Sean that same year.

She taught English only for several years after that, teaching at Wheaton North and Central High Schools, then finally going to Elgin H.S. in 1984, where she stayed until her retirement in June of 2008.  She also picked up some Latin classes at Bartlett H.S. and Streamwood H.S. as she was able.  It was not until Mac Williams, the current Latin teacher who recently passed away, retired in 1988 that she was able to get back into teaching Latin at Elgin.  It was also during this time that John Duffy, who taught Latin at Elgin Larkin for so many years, suggested that she get involved with ICC, chairing the Chicago Classics Day Committee.  From that time on, between creating competitions and hosting events at the Field Museum, Brookfield Zoo, Art Institute and Shedd Aquarium, she has been involved with the competitive and academic side of ICC, serving on the executive board every year.  Her attention gradually turned to certamen, which she volunteered to co-chair with Judy Hayes and Maureen Toner.  After 18 years, she is still writing contest questions and is now working with Liz Skoryi and Elisa Denja on certamen and runs the Elgin Sectional every year, dealing with those occasional weather problems, no-shows, and foul-ups that have turned many a teacher's hair grayer!!  Because of her years of experience, she was asked to serve as a judge on the national level, reading certamen questions for the NJCL convention competitions for the last three summers.

She has not only attended ICC conferences every year since then, but ACL institutes and at least 11 NJCL conventions, taking not only her students on these week-long adventures, but sponsoring students for other teachers as well. In her four years as junior and senior state chair for IJCL, she has influenced many a Latin student, including many of her students who have been elected state officers in that organization.

For her continued devoted service to the cause of fostering the classics in the classroom, on the state and national levels, the ICC wishes to recognize and honor with the Lifetime Achievement Award Lanetta Warrenburg.