Spanish camp returns to Havre High

Two Havre High School Spanish instructors are hosting a camp to raise money for a summer Puerto Rico trip for high school students.

Spanish teachers Marie Deegan and Diana Coy will be hosting two days of Spanish learning and cultural activities Dec. 28 and 29 at Havre High School for first- through sixth-graders. The camp will cost $15 for one day and $25 for two days. No early registration is needed. Parents can bring students to camp on the day it starts.

The camp runs from 1 to 4 p.m. in Room 18 of Havre High School.

In addition to teaching some basic Spanish words, activities will include Spanish sing-alongs, sombrero making, maraca shaking, a Mexican hat dance and a piñata beat-down. The Camp will also include Peruvian and Spanish cultural activities, Deegan said.

“It’s great for kids,” Deegan said, adding that the camp will be great for keeping the kids’ minds from atrophying during the holiday break.

The summer Puerto Rico trip will include a trek to San Juan, the capital of the U.S. commonwealth. The 10 or so students going will also get to swim in the Caribbean, go zip-lining, observe fluorescent — glow-in-the-dark — fish, and visit the El Moro Castle, Ponce and a Puerto Rican rain forest.

The six-day summer trip costs about $2,700 per high school student, Deegan said.

Deegan said it has been about five years since the Spanish Club has taken a summer trip. The idea was something she dreamed up a while ago, she said.

As a high school student, Deegan said, she had a Spanish teacher who inspired her to learn the language. Then, while at Carroll College, she traveled to Valencia, Spain, where she observed and implemented the language she had learned and cultivated a fondness for.

Not only does she think the language is beautiful, but “it’s a useful language, as a great number of people speak it,” she said

This will likely be her last outing with the students, Deegan said. She will retiring at the end of the year.