The Roman Road Project - Celebrate Good Times, Come On!

Since our Roman road was completed at the end of February, we've been working on some details to finish it up. At the request of our principal, we planted wildflower seeds along the sides of the road and then placed stepping stones nearby to protect them. The students decorated the stones with inspiring quotes about journeys and roads. My favorite: "Every journey of a thousand miles starts with one step." What a great description of our project! I decorated one with that famous line from Book I of the Aeneid: "forsan et haec olim meminisse iuvabit." And perhaps, one day, it WILL be pleasing to have remembered these things: foot-deep mud, heavy buckets of limestone, smelly rubber boots, and dirt-covered classroom floors.

Sometime during a lecture on milestones, one of my students asked if we could have a ribbon-cutting ceremony for the Roman road. Dr. Tyson Rupnow, our DOTD expert, was sitting in the back of the classroom at the moment, and he later told me enthusiastically that we should do that. He wanted to invite the state secretary of the DOTD, Dr. Shawn Wilson. Interestingly, Dr. Wilson just resigned his position as secretary and announced his run for governor of our state! Tyson thought that Dr. Wilson would really enjoy seeing our little road. Stay tuned -  we may be meeting a gubernatorial candidate!

Needless to say, since the day I agreed to have the ceremony, we've been busily planning - a road-themed cake, large scissors, and tiny gold laurel crowns. We made these out of gold-leaf ribbon, cheap metal headbands, and gold twist ties. We also have some special ones for Tyson and our principal, Erin Howard. 

We've also been thinking about speeches. The students want me to speak, and I think I've almost agreed to it. I'm not someone who likes the spotlight - I prefer to shine it on my students, and we've planned for them to serve as master/mistress of ceremonies, guest director, ribbon cutter, etc. But if I do speak, I would like to tell everyone how wonderful my students are and how hard they worked to make this project happen. They DESERVE victory crowns of real gold!

Here's our invitation - they will be going out soon!