THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, November 30, 1994 TAG: 9411290100
SECTION: ISLE OF WIGHT CITIZEN PAGE: 14 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY LINDA McNATT, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: SMITHFIELD LENGTH: Medium: 73 lines
When James B. Brown III walked down the line of board members at a recent School Board meeting at the Isle of Wight Courthouse, he shook hands one by one.
Brown was accepting congratulations from the board for being one of only 20 high school students in the United States selected for a special engineering program at North Carolina A&T State University this past summer.
But when he got to one hand extended to him from the line, he stopped, glanced up at his dad and grinned.
Brown, a 16-year-old junior at Smithfield High School, was the only student with a parent so close at hand that night during the School Board's ``good news'' report.
He is the son of senior board member James B. Brown Jr., an engineer who works for the federal government. His mother, Kaye, is a retired Spanish teacher.
And both of the elder Browns were obviously proud of their son as he received an award of recognition from the School Board.
Brown, known affectionately as ``J.B.'' by his parents and known better as ``James'' at school, applied for the program at the agricultural and technical college last May because, he said, he wanted to get more experience in different types of engineering. And the program offered him that oppor-tunity.
In order to be eligible, he said, he had to have Algebra II under his belt, and he had to write an essay about his life. In the second week of June, he received word that he was one of only 20 students in the entire country selected to attend.
The special program was held July 25 through Aug. 5. It consisted of college-level classes - English, science and math - over the two-week period spent right on the campus of the college near Greensboro, N.C. A class project involved building a rocket that was actually launched 2,000 feet into the atmosphere.
``I was the only person there from Virginia,'' Brown said. ``The professors were there to help us and to teach us. We attended classes most of the day - calculus, physics, English.''
Brown said he also attended a similar program in the summer of 1993 at Chowan College that focused on chemistry, physics and biology.
Even then, he said, he knew he wanted to follow in his dad's footsteps and go into some kind of engineering. At Chowan, he got a taste of engineering careers to choose from.
This summer, he made a final selection, and the program, he said, helped in that decision.
``I want to major in chemical engineering,'' he said. ``There seems to be a problem getting jobs in some fields today, but there's a demand in that field. Like at Union Camp - the chemical engineer determines how much wood actually goes into a sheet of paper.''
With a bachelor's degree, Brown said his research told him, a chemical engineer can expect to start working for a salary of about $28,000 a year.
``And as you move up, the pay increases,'' he said.
Brown said he also may have made another decision while he participated in the high-tech summer course: to attend the North Carolina college.
``I liked the school; I liked the campus,'' he said. ``My dad went to Howard, and he wants me to go there. Yeah, very badly. I don't know yet. I'm still thinking about it.''
His dad, Brown said, wants him to be a doctor, so ``I can be my own boss.''
But the youngster has other ideas.
``I just want to live comfortably,'' he said. ILLUSTRATION: Photo
James B. Brown III
Smithfield High junior
by CNB