2006 ICC Lifetime Achievement Award:
Marie and Lou Bolchazy

This year ICC begins what we hope will be a new tradition with the establishment of the Illinois Classical Conference Lifetime Achievement Award. The ICC Advisory Council voted to create this award last February 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. Thus the intent of this award is to celebrate the special accomplishments for the Classical world over a long period of time.

In many ways determining the first ICC Lifetime Achievement Award was an easy task for the Awards Committee. This first award recognizes achievements which go well beyond the borders of the State of Illinois and encompass not only the United States but also the entire Classical world. These achievements include significant scholarship, teaching, and promotion of the classics. Indeed, it would take a Herculean effort and more time than we have this evening to mention all these accomplishments.

Tonight we are honoring the publication of over 400 titles since1978. 98% of these represent the ancient world: the majority of these are textbooks for high school and college use, about 25% are in scholarship. These include four books on the Gilgamesh Epic, fifteen books on Vergil; and several books on each of the following: Cicero, Catullus, Horace, and Ovid. We recognize tonight the publication of school texts, grammars, ancillaries, and enrichment materials, both for Latin and Greek instruction, from basic to advanced levels.

Besides textbooks and scholarship, we celebrate with this award major efforts made for the promotion of Latin and Greek pronunciation, with the recording of Latin music on cassettes and CDs and in books. We recognize tonight the publication of a scholarly journal: The Classical Bulletin.

We commend outreach efforts to over countless homeschoolers who receive a bi-annual Latin newsletter and use the self-teaching Artes Latinae series.

We honor the successful effort in the past seven years to translate English language children’s literature into Latin, including Dr. Seuss’ How the Grinch Stole Christmans, and The Giving Tree.  Several hundred thousand copies of these children's classics in Latin have been sold as part of an effort at "Responsible popularization" of the Latin language. This effort has been promoted successfully in The Wall Street Journal, The Chronicle of Higher Education, the Associated Press, and hundreds of other newspapers together with other media, including radio and TV. The Chicago Tribune recently summarized the extent and the effect of these publications efforts in an article entitled: "Sex, Lies and Clay Tablets: From Gilgamesh to Hitler's Mess -- Publisher Keeps Thinking Fresh."

It was a been a felix culpa  indeed, that moved the recipients of this award away from classroom teaching to textbook publishing. Tonight, then, we honor with this award two fulfilling careers which have made such a positive impact on us as Latin teachers in Illinois. I ask you now to celebrate Marie and Lou Bolchazy as the recipients of the first Illinois Classical Conference Lifetime Achievement Award.

This citation was read by Tom Sienkewicz, Chair of the ICC Awards Committee.