A group of 18 students from Thales Academy in Raleigh participated in the N.C. Junior Classical League’s Fall Forum in Greensboro.

The students tied for first place in the Spirit Competition, wearing togas and clown noises to fit the “A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Fall Forum” theme and cheering in and about Latin. The novice and intermediate-level teams won two rounds of Certamen, a quiz-bowl style competition testing Classical knowledge.

On the intermediate-level Certamen team were Michael Bono, Evan Gales, Rebecca Taylor and Liliane Watkins. Orlando Antonio, Andrew Caywood, Alexander Oddo and Nicholas Oddo were on the novice team.

Michael was selected to take part in the forum’s opening ceremonies as the 2012-13 editor of the NCJCL newsletter, “Torch.”

Also at the forum, Thales Academy students presented a comedic puppet show about the emperor Caligula. “Caligula’s Average Day” was written by Evan and performed by Evan, Andrew and Chris Newton.

In addition to the students named above, Thales Academy was represented at the forum by Alexandra Cazin, Lian Grissino, Mackenzie Green, Sara Ben-Saull, James Bury, Mason VanViegen, Rachael Silver, Josh Gay and Ivan Bachinsky.

Other activities during the one-day forum included Greek tragedy performances, gladiatorial demonstrations, a mock archaeological dig and mosaic-making.