The Sun
Sunnyvale's Newspaper

Photograph by George Sakkestad

Rory Loeb is a network administrator at Homestead High School.

'Whiz Kid' wins contest

By Katherine Petersen

At age 5, Sunnyvale resident Rory Loeb was playing his first computer game.

A decade later, the Homestead High School student is a network administrator on campus, showing teachers how to navigate through programs and learn new skills on computers.

Some of Loeb's "students" don't like computers much, while others relish the opportunity to learn what they can do.

"It depends on the teacher," Loeb said. "Some take a bit of time, but most of them grasp the concepts and like to experiment."

His computer savvy recently gained Loeb recognition as one of the nation's five winners in the Iomega Zip 1997 Techno Whiz Kid Contest, sponsored by the Utah-based Iomega Corporation, a company that specializes in personal-computer storage drives and disks. Winners were selected through an online search.

As a reward, Loeb, who just turned 15, won two days with one parent at COMDEX, the largest computer trade show in the country, held in Las Vegas. The show is usually barred to anyone under 21. Loeb's parents paid for part of his trip and accompanied him so he could stay the entire week of the show, from Nov. 17 to Nov. 21. Loeb also received Iomega products.

"I'm going to get to see all the new technology, the stuff that really gets me going," he said before the trip. "I'll get to see demonstrations of the latest and greatest."

Asked what he'd like to see as a new invention, Loeb requested an operating system that doesn't crash. The 15-year-old also hoped to bring home lots of free samples. One of his friends brought home an infrared mouse and an infrared keyboard from last year's extravaganza.

Loeb depends on computers to do all of his schoolwork but also enjoys playing games, surfing the Internet and fixing the temperamental machines.

"They're my life," he said.

The contest ran from Aug. 26 to Sept. 26, and was open to U.S. residents 14 to 18 years old. Contestants and nominators submitted short essays about how their work with computers contributed to the community.

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This article appeared in the Sunnyvale Sun, November 26, 1997.
©1997 Metro Publishing, Inc. All rights reserved.