Champion speller from Arlington Heights is also champion chemist
Less than two weeks after finishing as runner-up in the Scripps National Spelling Bee, Adrian Gunawan of Arlington Heights finally nailed a national title.
This time, the former South Middle School eighth grader won first place in the You Be the Chemist national challenge, mounted by the Chemical Educational Foundation and held last week in Philadelphia.
On Monday, Adrian and his parents, along with South Middle School Principal Linda Klobucher, will travel to Springfield to receive recognition from Gov. Pat Quinn.
"We are so proud of him," Klobucher said of his latest title. "This is a student who just loves learning."
Officials with Quinn's office have invited the 18 spellers from Illinois who advanced to the Scripps National Spelling Bee earlier this month, for a ceremony at the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library & Museum.
"Gov. Quinn wants to recognize all their accomplishments and unique challenge of the spelling bee," said Matt Bergbower, of the governor's office.
Chemical engineers across the country started sponsoring the national chemistry competition six years ago as a way to heighten interest in their industry. In recent years, officials say, numbers of students entering local contests have grown exponentially.
Adrian emerged the winner from a pool that initially drew 15,000 students who competed at the regional level in 17 states and the District of Columbia.
He placed second at the regional competition held at the Prairie Center for the Arts in Schaumburg, before winning the state contest in Des Plaines that advanced him to nationals.
"I've loved chemistry since third grade," Adrian said. "I just like to learn about how things react."
Competition questions covered chemistry concepts such as how sodium electrons fill an atom's subshells and how the human protein thrombin helps speed up coagulation, as well as identifying important discoveries.
Ironically, Adrian who says he loves math the most, got tripped up on a question on balancing chemical equations.
"I miscounted, but then I only had 20 seconds," he said. "Overall, it was a little less stressful than the spelling bee. After the preliminaries of the spelling bee, it was sudden death. Here, there was a little more leeway for mistakes."
Like the spelling bee, however, which was shown live on ESPN and ABC, Adrian wore a lucky blue T-shirt under his collared shirt for the competition.
"I never was superstitious before, but I started getting more superstitious this year with the spelling bee," Adrian said, "when I started getting more serious."
All 18 chemistry finalists will receive a 300-piece chemistry set, as well as several other prizes. As one of the top four winners, Adrian also received a $5,000 educational savings bond.