(COVINGTON, La.) Parking spots scarce, breakfast-eating students flushed out of the cafeteria early, and first period SSR (Sustained Silent Reading): to a St. Paul’s School student, these elements combine to mean but one thing — Honor Roll Breakfasts are here.

If there is one thing that members of the St. Paul’s community know,  is that President Bro. Ray Bulliard, FSC, is never one to shy away from showing off his students’ accomplishments. At the end of the first, second and third quarters of the school year, students with all As and Bs are invited, along with their parents, to the Honor Roll Breakfasts. For each quarter, three breakfasts are scheduled, 8th and 9th grade, 10th and 11th grade, and 12th grade by itself. With Chick-Fil-A provided courtesy of Rick Gonzales, manager of the Chick-Fil-A on Highway 190, students find a seat with their parents and peers, awaiting the typical events of the ceremony. To open, Assistant Academic Principal Joe Dickens reads out the names of all the students who have earned honor roll status, requesting they stand before the parents and classmates. First, those with As and Bs, followed by those achieving all As, President’s Honor Roll, the best and brightest of the class.

After honors have been bestowed, Bro. Ray takes the floor and begins to speak on one of his favorite subjects of all: vocabulary. Students who were in Bro. Ray’s freshman Honors English class understand how pivotal he finds vocabulary to be to everyday discourse. Over the course of a student’s tenure, one will notice that Bro. Ray tends to stick to a theme: two words of great praise, and two words that are not necessarily words you would want to be associated with. For his first quarter spiel, his choices were as follows:

Beatinest (adj) Surpassing all others; most remarkable

Perfidious (adj) Faithless; treacherous; deceitful

Paladin (noun) Any determined advocate or defender of a noble cause; an heroic champion

Puzzlewit (noun) A persistently dull, boring pest

As usual, Bro. Ray walked around each breakfast event, expanding on his vocabulary terms while he picked students out of the crowd, once again making everyone in the room question his ability to know the first and last names of all the students at St. Paul’s. Bro. Ray then closed out each breakfast in prayer, and sent the parents and their exceptional students on their way.