If I may take a page from Shakespeare, we can only hope that "the winter of our discontent" will be followed rapidly by a truly glorious summer – with a beautiful and balmy spring to herald it in. It’s been a rough few weeks in many parts of our fair Commonwealth, but hopefully you have begun to dig out from the mountains of snow and are beginning to see signs of the spring that is surely just around the corner. How much better it will be to feel like Horace, enjoying his wine in the shade of the myrtle tree, than like Hannibal, braving the snowy Alps with his elephants!

It seems that this time of year is always the busiest, and among the most fulfilling, for so many of us in the CAV. At this writing, students around the state are preparing for the Latin Tournament and putting finishing touches on their Classical and Latin essays, and we will be celebrating their achievements at our upcoming Spring meeting. In addition, we will be honoring two of our colleagues with the Angela Lloyd and Lurlene W. Todd awards and will be recognizing a worthy high school student with the Wayne W. Wray Scholarship. Deadlines for those awards are fast approaching, so please make sure to submit your nominations quickly. Information on submission for these recognitions can be found on the CAV web site. This is a wonderful opportunity to honor those who have done so much for Classics in Virginia. Please take the time to nominate.

Jon Mikalson, John Miller and their hard-working committee continue to prepare a wealth of activities for celebrating our upcoming CAV Centennial celebration, at our Fall 2010 CAV meeting being held at the Omni Hotel in Richmond in conjunction with the CAMWS-Southern Section. You will find updates to all of these activities in this newsletter, so please take a look at what they have planned. Make a point to put the dates on your calendars. You’ll want to join us for this unique opportunity to celebrate this special anniversary of one of the oldest state Classical associations in the country.

It’s early, I know, to be thinking about this fall’s FLAVA conference, October 8-9, but I do want to mention it here. This year’s conference theme will be "No Borders: The World in Virginia." There has always been a small, but dedicated, group of Latin teachers attending this conference and enthusiastic stalwarts who sign up to make terrific presentations. Yet, many Latin teachers continue to believe that FLAVA, with its concentration on modern foreign language, really doesn’t have anything to offer them. In a time of national and state budget cuts and a misplaced belief that language is one of the areas suitable to "trim the fat", we simply can’t afford to sit back and hope the axe doesn’t land on any of our own programs. We need to do everything necessary to keep our own programs vibrant and our numbers growing. FLAVA gives us that opportunity, if we just embrace it. Please consider offering a session at this year’s conference. The more sessions we have for Latin teachers, the more teachers we will get involved and the more wonderful ideas for keeping programs fresh and current we will be able to spread throughout the state. You can find session proposal forms and more information on this Fall’s conference on their website at http://www.flavaweb.org. Sign up and bring a friend or two.