Sophomore Whiz Kid Joshua Bowman Has Deep Roots in Church, Community and Academics

Joshua Bowman is a sophomore at  who is tied closely with his church and the community.

The son of Jeff and Becky, he has already achieved what many students accomplish in their junior and senior year. Not only does he maintain a high academic standard, but he makes it work with other activities including sports and music.

He has been part of team for five years, finishing four times as a state finalist and twice as a national competitor. He has been a Pennsylvania Junior Academy of Science state qualifier, where he took first place and won the exemplary award. He is a member of the Junior Technical Society, the Peters Township Forensics Team, MathCounts, Odyssey of the Mind and the Science Olympiad.

He is currently a finalist for the Peters team that will appear on the KDKA Hometown High-Q program to be taped in May, and has won numerous out-of-school honors for his essays from the VFW Patriot’s Pen, the Society for Analytical Chemists of Pittsburgh, the Washington County Bar Association, the Optimist Foundation, the National Student Leadership Conference and the Pennsylvania Pro-life Federation, among others.

He was named 2001 Outstanding Young Citizen by the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, and is a member of the National Honor Society.

He has been the captain of the high school fencing team, where he was a three-year national championship competitor, and won gold medals at the Arnold International Sports Festival and Holy Grail team competition.

As a musician, he plays the cello, is a member of the South Hills Junior Orchestra and sings with the adult choir at Thomas Presbyterian Church, where he has been a soloist, worship leader and has completed numerous work in the mission outreach of the church.

He took time from a very hectic schedule to talk with us.

Patch: The biggest question is, how do you find the time to do it all?

Bowman: I guess it just happens that a lot of my activities happen to work together time-wise. I’m pretty much busy seven days a week.

Patch: You’ve played football and tennis, and you’re really active in fencing. How did you get involved in that?

Bowman: Ever since I was a kid I liked to play around with swords, so my parents got me involved in a fencing program where I took lessons. It’s a great mental exercise and it’s a lot of fun to do.

Patch: You told me that math and science have always been your best subjects, and you even skipped ahead grades in your math classes. Was it ever intimidating to you to be the youngest in those classes?

Bowman: Not really. I started off really young being around kids that were older than me, and one of my best friends also followed the same path as me, so every year I was with my best friend in the classes. That helped me too.

Patch: You stated in your application to the National Honor Society that you always have had a passion for service, and your record of service at your church and in the community seem to underscore that. What was, or who was, your inspiration for that?

Bowman: Just seeing my family. They’re involved in service projects right alongside of me. I’ve grown up in a service-based family and I’ve always enjoyed serving along with them. I get a great feeling just helping so many people. It’s great to see the impact you can have on the community just by doing small tasks that take only three or four hours once a week. That can make such a large impact on those people and the community.

Patch: What do you see as your future for the rest of your time at Peters and beyond?

Bowman: I want to get into a lot of AP classes to get my GPA up, and taking classes that will help me to get into a college to study nuclear engineering. My ideal school is Penn State, but there are a lot of other good schools out there for the same studies.

We congratulate Bowman and wish him the best of luck. Do you know of an amazing child or teen? Read how to submit your Whiz Kid nomination .