March 10, 2011 – Gaithersburg High School is pleased to announce that 10 students of Russian received medals as a result of their accomplishments in the American Council of Teachers of Russian (ACTR) 29th National Russian Essay Contest which was administered in November 2010. 12th graders Jimmy Nguyen won a gold medal and Nathan Hertzberg and Emmanuel Osemene won silver medals in the advanced level exams. 11th graders Trevor Davis and Graham Evans won silver medals and Germaine Nicholas, Juan Martinez, Leah Pope, Nicole Camelo and Diana Fuentes won bronze medals in the intermediate level exams. A total of 14 students from the Honors Russian 3 and Honors Russian 4 classes taught by Ms. Alla Sonsev participated in the contest, a record breaking number. In addition to the above medal winners, 11th graders Kyla Hooks, Mark Jubert and Danielle Riley as well as 12th grader, Walter Somarriba received honorable mention in the intermediate level exam. Over 1200 pre-college students nationwide participated in the contest this year, each writing essays on the topic “Why Travel.” Essays were read by a team of experienced judges, many of them native speakers of Russian.
