When Wasilla High cross-country runner Baruch Chamberlain sets his mind to learning something, there's no stopping him. He possesses an unusual ability to focus. It's a skill that's helped him learn to speak Russian fluently and to play the violin by ear.

It's also a skill that has helped Chamberlain excel in sports and in school -- he's a senior with a 3.8 GPA and is on track to graduate despite entering public school for the first time as a 16-year-old freshman.

Most importantly, it's a skill that has helped him cope with spending much of his life in foster shelters and foster homes. His three brothers and three sisters are spread all over, either in foster homes or on their own out of state.

Graduating from high school and carving out a normal life is, Chamberlain said, "my little jab back at life.

"I started late," he said, "but by God, I'm not finishing late."

A top runner on Wasilla High's cross-country team, Chamberlain doesn't like to delve too deeply into his past, though he offers that before taking up sports during his freshman year, he was a "misfit."

Social interaction was difficult. Home-schooled all his life until his family broke apart, Chamberlain simply didn't relate to his peers. He misused slang terms -- one time uttering curse words to an administrator without realizing his words were offensive and inappropriate.

Wasilla coach Gary Howell joked that Chamberlain was like the Jeff Bridges character in the movie "Starman," an alien completely clueless to the nuances of human interaction.

"He's so well-adjusted now, it's funny to hear him say 'dude' and 'man' and 'rad,' " Howell said. "When he first came here, he was not that guy at all. It's pretty cool to see the adjustment in him, watch his maturity come around."

Chamberlain lived with Howell and his wife Kim for a year. Chamberlain's then-foster family was moving out of state, and Chamberlain was facing the prospect of moving back to a shelter. So Howell stepped in and offered his home.

Sports provided the impetus for Chamberlain to assimilate and live a normal life. Running, and later cross-country skiing, provided the outlet, the discipline and the release he needed to overcome his past and transform himself.

"Being in cross country helped me a great deal," Chamberlain said. "Sports are the reason for me being in high school.

"I definitely need it. It keeps me alive, keeps me going."

And it helps him express emotions he otherwise might bottle up, Howell said.

"When you express emotions, you're vulnerable. And vulnerability is not something he deals with well," the coach said. "A lot of times he puts up a great front -- he's strong, everything's fine. I think sometimes that emotion can come out in his athletics. He'll just pour it out there."

At age 12, Chamberlain wanted to learn how to play the violin. He says his father wouldn't pay for one but directed him to a Web site that provided instructions for building one.

Using a soapbox, fishing line and a piece of lumber, Chamberlain built a spike fiddle, a Middle Eastern relative of the violin. Then he taught himself to play it. When he later bought a traditional violin, he taught himself to play it too.

His latest musical passion is acoustic guitar. His musical ability is such that he attended the nationally renowned Sitka Fine Arts Camp this summer.

Chamberlain also learned to speak and write Russian on his own, beginning with an old Soviet-era textbook his mother found in a dump.

He learned the language so well that he recently won a national Russian language essay contest, plus two gold medals at the Alaska state Olympiada of Spoken Russian in Anchorage, a contest that tests language skills.

Last spring break Chamberlain traveled to Russia on a class trip. He visited Moscow and St. Petersburg and was able to converse with everyone he met. It was an amazing experience, he said.

Now he's researching colleges in the Pacific Northwest and is also considering UAF and UAA. He's considering studying aeronautics, wildlife biology or something to do with Russian. His 3.8 GPA should earn him some scholarship money.

Chamberlain has also emerged as Wasilla's top runner and cross-country skier. He qualified for the state cross-country running meet individually last season, and Howell hopes that this season Chamberlain can lead a young squad to the state championships -- a feat Wasilla hasn't accomplished since 2005.

Life has been difficult at times, Chamberlain said, but he has no regrets.

"Nobody should feel sorry for me," he said. "I'm glad who I am. A lot of people have helped me out. I'm happy stuff is going my way."

Find Ron Wilmot online at adn.com/contact/rwilmot or call 907-352-6712.

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