This Summer, He Will Really Be the Talk of Moscow

Ty Sheppard of Los Angeles smiled all the way home last month. Why? Because the 16-year-old junior at Harvard-Westlake High School in North Hollywood won the Southern California division of the California Spoken Russian Olympiada.

One of about 70 students from the Los Angeles area to participate in the preliminary round, Sheppard, a second-year Russian student, competed against a field of third-, fourth- and fifth-level speakers. They were quizzed about everyday life, Russian history and culture.

Facing nine competitors in the finals, he was questioned intensely on similar subjects by a panel of seven judges, many of whom were native speakers.

“I think the hardest thing was doing it and going up in front of people who speak Russian,” he said. “I was concerned about my grammar, but I also wanted to be fluid during the conversations.”

After a grueling afternoon competition, Sheppard was named the winner of this year’s Olympiada sponsored by the American National Council of Teachers of Russian. He was awarded a five-week, all-expense paid trip to Moscow and Volgograd this summer.

“I was just completely surprised (that I won),” he said. “I kept thinking about the trip, and I was smiling the whole way home.”

Sheppard became interested in studying the Russian language during a vacation.

“In the summer of 1989, I took a trip to the Soviet Union,” he said. “I thought it could be an even greater trip if I could talk to the people, and then I started learning (the language).”

When he first started studying Russian, he said that understanding its structure was difficult. But as time went on, he was able to master the basic concepts and has become more comfortable speaking Russian.

In preparation for the Olympiada, Sheppard and two classmates practiced their language skills in class with the help of their teacher.

“A trip will be so much more enriched if you can speak the language in a foreign country,” he said. “The process of learning it well and understanding it well takes a little longer, but it will pay off if you keep with it.”

The Santa Monica Bay Division of the California Retired Teachers Assn. has awarded Thomas Odegard a $1,000 scholarship from the Laura E. Settle Fund.

Odegard, who is enrolled in the UCLA Graduate School of Education, will begin his student teaching this spring. The fund was established to aid and encourage prospective instructors who are in teacher training programs at University of California and California State University campuses.

Robert Gabriel has been reelected chairman of the board of trustees at Santa Monica Hospital Medical Center.

Gabriel, president of Bob Gabriel Insurance in Santa Monica, began his third term in January.

Santa Monica Police Chief James Butts and Albert Williams, director of the RAND/UCLA Center for Health Policy, also were elected to the board.

Kelly Morgan has been appointed manager of the Beverly Hills Chamber of Commerce’s new economic development department.

Morgan will coordinate activities and implement programs of the Economic Development Council, a partnership between the city and chamber. For two years, she has been program coordinator for the Beverly Hills Visitors Bureau.

Jacquelyn Flaskerud has been named associate dean for academic affairs at the UCLA School of Nursing.

Flaskerud, who has a nursing degree from Wesley Memorial Hospital School of Nursing in Chicago and a bachelor’s degree from Northwestern University, joined the UCLA faculty in 1980. She also holds a master’s degree in psychiatric nursing and a doctorate in nursing and anthropology.

In addition to serving as dean for academic affairs, she is a professor of psychiatric/mental health nursing at the school.

Elizabeth Ayer has been named a semifinalist in the 1992 Presidential Scholars Program.

Ayer was among more than 2,500 semifinalists selected for superior academic achievement, leadership qualities, character, and involvement in community and school activities. She is a senior at Brentwood School in Brentwood.

Finalists will be named in early May.