CONCORD – Cannon School students in grades nine through 12 earned one gold medal, five silver medals and eight bronze medals in the National Spanish Exam, a competition sponsored in March by the American Association of Teachers of Spanish and Portuguese.

Two north Mecklenburg students, Shelby Dyl of Davidson and Ian Hicks of Huntersville, were awarded bronze medals for scoring from the 75th to 85th percentile.

“Attaining a medal for any student on the National Spanish Examination is very prestigious because the exams are the largest of their kinds in the United States, with 140,373 students participating in 2011,” Kevin Cessna-Buscemi, exams national director, said in a news release.