HEBRON – Five Hebron Academy students recently won awards based on their performance on the 2007 National Latin Exam, an event involving more than 134,000 students from all 50 states and 13 foreign countries.

Tae Hoh Park of Korea and Brent Landry of Oxford received Silver Maxima Cum Laude (silver medal) honors in Latin 1, with Cum Laude recognition in Latin 1 going to Robert Thoits of Grand Rapids, Mich. In Latin 2, Bess Curtis of Turner received Magna Cum Laude, and in Prose 3, Lydia Drown of Leeds received Magna Cum Laude.

All are students of Latin teacher Max Jones, a graduate of Middlebury College and first-year instructor at Hebron.

“I don’t teach to the test,” Jones said, “so students inevitably have to make educated guesses based on what they know I’m very proud of them. The results are a testament to their hard work and intuition.”

Building on this year’s success, Jones plans to introduce an AP Latin course on the poetry of Virgil during the coming year as well as a prose course, including the works of Caesar and Cicero.

The National Latin Exam is distributed by Clements Testing Service of Fairfax, Va., and was administered by Hebron Academy Foreign Language Department Chairwoman Cynthia Reedy.

For more information, visit www.hebronacademy.org or call 966-2100.