After receiving his diploma as a Class of 2009 Uni High graduate, Jeremy Kemball leaves the Tryon Festival Theatre stage Saturday night. Gargoyle photo by David Porreca (click to enlarge)

URBANA — I met Jeremy Kemball three years ago at Uni's first culture fair. I was struck by his interest in my booth on South Africa, given that it had no food.

The puzzle cleared up the moment he casually mentioned that his parents are from South Africa. He then promptly moved on — there was nothing to snack on, after all.

Our paths hadn't really crossed since then, but as the 2008-09 school year entered its final weeks, I decided to learn more about this University of Illinois-bound senior before he graduated.

Heritage

Had it not been for our encounter at the culture fair, I would never have known that our families hail from the same part of the world.

Accent would not have been a clue. Kemball's parents moved to the United States (to Socorro, N.M.) when he was barely a toddler, so he talks like an American.

He admits that he sometimes has trouble pronouncing certain words like "daft" because "my parents say it, so I pick up their pronunciation, which doesn't fit with the rest of my accent. It's a headache." But he sounds totally American otherwise.

Kemball may have lived in this country most of his life, but his ties to South Africa have not been severed. He still has family there and visits more or less every two years. I found that I could relate to Jeremy's perception of his heritage.

"South African culture is a lot like American culture: a blend of lots of different things," he says. But, as he points out, "It's a different set of things."

At the heart of that difference is the legacy of apartheid, which Jeremy's relatives and other like-minded white South Africans resisted in various ways.

"Occasionally my uncle will let slip something about how they failed psychology exams intentionally to avoid being drafted into the apartheid police/army force," he says. (All white males were conscripted into the army, and conscientious objectors were either jailed or left the country — which explains why I'm a Canadian.)

As Jeremy says when thinking about South Africa, "Mostly it's kind of dark to me." But not all is. When asked about his favorite food, he quickly remembers his aunt's Kingclip curry that got him hooked on curry as a small child.

After the serious South Africa talk, I thought a few lighthearted questions would be in order.

Personality

From these I learn that Jeremy's work style can neither be described as the "steady" type nor entirely the "deadline" type.

"It depends," he says. "Classes I hate are deadlines, but if it's a project in a class I'm sort of interested in, I'll work at it a bit then ignore it until the night before and finish it off."

His iPod is full with about 700 songs, and a current favorite is "Sabotage" by the Beastie Boys.

"It was in the 'Star Trek' movie," he explains, adding, "I just recently developed a taste for The Shins, so I've been listening to that for a while."

To make Jeremy happy, all you'd have to get him is a gadget for his birthday.

"I have a soft spot for gadgetry, but not just the electric kinds. I got a blender for Christmas once, and that sounds lame, but it gives your finger the ability to turn fruit into smoothies. This is a pretty delicious superpower to have."

Attracted by a job at the University of Illinois, where Jeremy's father is an associate professor in the astronomy department, the Kemball family moved from New Mexico to Urbana about five years ago.

Jeremy describes his father, Athol Kemball, as the biggest influence in his life. They share an interest in science, but there's more.

He smiles as he remembers losing every single chess game he played with his father when he was little. No fake wins — the implicit lesson being you've got to stand on your own feet and earn what you want.

After Uni

Kemball played soccer at Uni and was on stage in several theater productions, including "West Side Story" and StudProd '08, but it's his performance in academic competitions that shows where his future lies.

This spring, he earned first place in physics (tied with classmate Daniel Borup) and second place in computer science as he helped lead Uni to its 11th state championship in 12 years at the Worldwide Youth in Science and Engineering Academic Challenge.

Placing first at WYSE landed him a $2,000 scholarship to the U of I College of Engineering, where he plans to major in biomedical engineering.

Trying to learn more about Jeremy, I ask several application-type questions, such as "Describe yourself in three words" or "What makes you unique?," but these evoke shrugs.

When I ask him to talk about his interest in biomedical engineering, however, the answers become animated and complete.

"There's a bunch of really interesting things going on right at the edge of bioengineering," Kemball says. "It's like science-fictiony stuff at the cellular level."

He explains that part of his biology project this year had to do with a goo that is a liquid if kept slightly acid. When you inject the goo into someone, the pH drops, and it sets into fake bone. Then regular bone cells colonize the fake bone and turn it into real bone.

As Kemball says, the new developments are like the stuff science fiction is made of. Except they're real, and his enthusiastic descriptions make them fascinating even for a person like me who is not normally very interested in biology.

When I ask whether he has specific goals in life, he sounds a bit vague but does mention that he thinks it would be real awesome if he invented something.

Now that I've gotten a chance to know Jeremy, I would not be surprised when he does.

Jeremy Kemball, right, appears in Sierra Marcum's "Criminal Crime," one of the plays featured in Student Productions '08. Also onstage: Anna Gooler (center) and Sarah Lake-Rayburn.

Kemball (top row, second from the left) was part of this year's small-school state champion WYSE Academic Challenge team.