[S]tella Quarta Decima Fulgeat. Translation: “May the 14th star shine bright.”
Keep it in mind. The maxim may be on its way to becoming the Vermont State Latin Motto.
The House Committee on Government Operations unanimously approved a Senate bill that would enshrine the Latin motto in statute. Sen. Joe Benning, R-Caledonia, sponsored the bill, and Angela Kubicke, a St. Johnsbury Academy ninth-grader, proposed the motto.
The phrase would not replace “freedom and unity” the state’s motto and would not go on the seal or the flag. Benning likened it to the state having the sugar maple as the state tree, or the Morgan as the state horse.
“It would give a young person from Vermont the ability to, many years from now, be able to look back and say, ‘I had an impact,’” Benning testified. “I am bound and determined to make this happen, come hell or high water, and anything else that gets done in this building this year.”
The House Government Operations Committee’s unanimous vote was a rebuke to Vermonters who reacted to news of the bill’s introduction in January with a spurt of anti-Hispanic online commentary.
Apparently confusing ‘Latin’ with ‘Latin-American,’ some of the comments accused Benning of supporting illegal immigration. One said, “Throw Benning and Obama back to Mexico.”
The “ill-informed, negative response,” to the Latin motto has gone viral around the world, according to Roy Starling, one of Kubicke’s former teachers at Riverside School who testified before the House Committee.
“I think that a ‘yes’ vote on this would make a strong statement about who we are and that we really do honor our connection with our founders and the classics,” Starling said.
The motto is borrowed from a coin known as the Harmon cent which was minted in the town of Rupert, Kubicke said.
Kubicke said she came up with the motto when she participated in the national Junior Classical League. The group formed a Latin club version of the game Jeopardy.
“It’s almost like a puzzle that you get to put together, except with language,” Kubicke said.
That’s when she began learning about Latin mottos — and the fact that Vermont didn’t have one.
The subsequent international brouhaha inspired a letter to Angela from Reginald Foster, who formerly worked in the “Latin Letters” section of the Secretariat of State in the Vatican.
Benning said when he received a copy of Angela’s letter last year, he thought of Sen. Graham Newell, who had been a professor at Lyndon State College and a longtime Latin teacher at St. Johnsbury Academy. “Up until the day he died,” Benning said.
Newell served four terms in the Vermont House of Representatives and eight in the Senate.
“So when I received Angela’s letter, it suddenly caused a connection for me,” Benning said.
