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St. Olaf classics students again take top honors in national competition

By Amy Gage
April 7, 2003

Three students from St. Olaf College won four of the 25 awards in the Maurine Dallas Watkins Contests sponsored by Eta Sigma Phi, the national classics honor society for college students.

Only two other institutions nationwide earned multiple prizes in the rigorous competition this year: Hillsdale College in Hillsdale, Mich., and the University of Texas-Austin.

Marquis S. Berrey, a senior classics major from Galesburg, Ill., won second prize in the Advanced Classical Greek Translation Contest. In 2001 he won honorable mention in the Intermediate Classical Greek Translation Contest.

Keeley Esterhay, a first-year student from Englewood, Coplo., has won first prize in the Intermediate Latin Translation Contest and second prize in the Latin Prose Composition Contest.

Kathleen R. Burt, a junior classics and English major from North Oaks, Minn., won honorable mention in the Latin Prose Composition Contest.

"Several of our winners have gone on to successful careers as Latin and Greek teachers," says Professor of Classics Anne Groton, chair of the department. "Gwendolyn L. Compton-Engle '92, who taught at St. Olaf from 1997 to 2002, and Jon S. Bruss '89, current assistant arofessor of classics at St. Olaf, were both Eta Sigma Phi winners.

"It meant so much to Stephen M. Loomis '97 to win first prize in the Eta Sigma Phi Intermediate Latin contest in 1994," Groton adds, "that he and his parents -- Kenneth and Kathleen Loomis -- decided to endow an annual Latin academic award at St. Olaf."

Students must be enrolled in an ancient Greek or Latin course at the intermediate or advanced level to be eligible to compete. Students take the written exam at St. Olaf in February. Then their papers are sent out for anonymous review by judges at universities elsewhere in the country. The winners receive monetary awards as well as national recognition.

Every year since 1980, at least one classics student from St. Olaf has taken honors in Maurine Dallas Watkins competition. For more information, see the Classics Department web page.

Contact David Gonnerman at 507-786-3315 or gonnermd@stolaf.edu.