May 25, 2010 - Fourteen students taking Russian from Shaker High School and three students from Shaker Junior High School competed against a field of more than 80 hand-picked students from various schools throughout the state, from Staten Island to Rochester, from large and small school districts, wherever the Russian language is taught.

The Russian Olympiad is conducted every year as a speaking contest to select and give recognition to students of Russian who demonstrate mastery of the subject appropriate for their level and the ability to use the language with great facility. The Olympiad was hosted at SUNY-Albany campus by their Russian program of the Department of Languages, Literature, and Cultures. Students from various parts of New York participated in a full day of academic competition for scholarships, awards, and general recognition of excellence. During the competition students spoke Russian exclusively within three strictly designated categories or topics - literature, government and culture, and about their own school and life style. For each category, they met with and were assigned different judges. Most of the judges for this year's competition were professors and staff of Russian Department from SUNY-Albany. Many of the judges were native speakers and/or teachers of Russian. All students participating had to answer numerous questions in Russian about topics dealing with politics, economics, geography, literature, and culture. Questions were also asked about students' interests, their school, sports, home and family life.

Ten of the seventeen students from Shaker were awarded gold medals, six Shaker students received silver medals, and one student received a bronze medal in this statewide contest. Tami Hartshorn and Heather Cameron became finalists and participated in the second round of the competition. Tami Hartshorn became the overall winner of the competition.

The breakdown of student medalists for the Russian Olympiad was as follows:

Gold

Richard Albright

Mariam Aghayan

Sean McHugh

Emma Torncello

Simran Rastogi

Heather Cameron

Brittany Egnot

Anastasia Garceau

Andrew Layden

Tami Hartshorn

Silver

Michael Galvin

Katie Green

Schyler Belonga

Wojciech Roczniak

Zhaokun Ma

Adam Parower

Bronze

Victoria DeLaCancela