The tall (6 ft. 6 in.), solemn, 17-year-old boy said a few polite words to the President of the U.S., then gave him the lapel pin worn by 40 finalists in the 18th annual Westinghouse Science Talent Search. Minutes later, unflustered by the company he had just kept, John Seymour Letcher Jr. sat jackknifed in a bus seat, lost in a scientific diagram he was sketching. Next day Letcher, who had won his Washington trip by building a particle accelerator, learned that he had won again. His prize: the $7,500 top award in the Westinghouse contest.
John Letcher of Lexington, Va. had...
To continue reading:
or
Log-In
