Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, March 10, 1993 TAG: 9303100096
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: ROBERT FREIS STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: RADFORD LENGTH: Medium
CLINTON HANDSHAKE A WINNER IN YOUNG SCIENTIST'S BOOK
Whoa! Kass Kastning's famous! He's on CNN. His picture's in The Washington Post. They interview him on national radio.Hey, he shook Bill Clinton's hand!
All of this happened in Washington from Thursday through Monday at the Westinghouse Science Talent Search.
Three of the 10 finalists in this national competition among 40 high school seniors were from Montgomery County - Maryland.
So Kastning wasn't among them. But he points out with equanimity that not finishing in the top 10 actually improves his chances of winning a Nobel Prize.
Most of the five Nobel winners who have participated in the 52-year-old big-time science fair didn't make the top 10, either, he says.
Besides, it was a great four days.
"Something I'll never forget," he said.
And nobody got more publicity than Kastning. Just by coincidence, microphones and camera lenses kept finding him all week.
A clip of Kastning demonstrating his project on ground water and cave development ran for a day or so on CNN Headline News. Monday's issue of the Post ran a photo of Kastning, also in mid-scientific explanation.
The biggest deal of all was the night Kastning and his fellow young scientists went to the White House to meet the President. "I was excited. Not really nervous. I had no idea what to say," he said.
Clinton had a firm handshake - no crusher - and asked him where Radford was.
Kastning also chatted with Virginia Sen. Charles Robb and met Barry Bishop, a personal hero of Kastning, a veteran mountain climber and a vice president of the National Geographic Society.
Beyond that, much of the time between his arrival in Washington last Thursday and Monday night's awards banquet was an exhausting blur.
Kastning, 17, was just off the plane Tuesday after having slept, at most, an hour the night before. He said his immediate plans were "going to sleep," and then studying for a test today at Radford High School.
His task through much of the competition involved interviews and explanations, with a panel of judges and with members of the public while his project was displayed at the National Academy of Science.
Oddly, some of the elementary school kids seemed to understand karst (or limestone) geology more readily than Glenn Seaborg, a Nobel chemist from the University of California at Berkeley, who was a judge. "I think he figured it out after a while," Kastning said.
A few insufferable "natural-born, calculus-smart people" came expecting to win, but most of the other contestants were good companions, he said. They went to the Hard Rock Cafe and spent some quality time in a Georgetown pool hall.
Meanwhile, back home, Kastning's exhibit won first place Saturday at Radford High's science fair - in absentia.
Now that he's back at Radford, Kastning will redirect his focus toward other science competitions and perhaps find time for field work. But none of his contemporaries - not even the jocks who toss footballs and date cheerleaders - ever had a run in the limelight like Kass Kastning.