Baking is a specialty for Aurora Gibson.

This year, it helped the eighth-grade student from Montgomery County Middle School celebrate a first-place finish at the annual R-II Science Fair at MCMS.

Aurora won first place in the eighth-grade division for her Baking Powder Power project in which she tests how much baking powder that goes into muffins. She was all smiles when she saw her first-place medal next to her project.

“I baked the first night,” Aurora said. “The next night, we did it all. It took a while. It was definitely worth it.”

Aurora was one of 10 students in the district to earn first-place finishes at the annual science fair, which was held at the MCMS multipurpose room for the second year in a row. The others were Owen Viola (kindergarten), Hampton Cothren (first grade), Sophia Brucks (second grade), Alva Powell (third grade), Adelaide Healy (fourth grade), Dawson Doyle (fifth grade), Mercer Cothren (sixth grade), Julia Elder (seventh grade) and Jadrian Thurmon (high school).

The top three finishers in each age division earned medals. They were also prizes given away at the event.

The second-place finishers were Olivia Brucks (kindergarten), Charlie Hans (first grade), Maddox Doyle (second grade), Lillian Elder (third grade), Ella Brucks (fourth grade), Rikki Fry (fifth grade), Gemma Witte (sixth grade), Avery Finke (seventh grade) and Grayson Dunlap (eighth grade). Placing third were Emery Rodgers (third grade), Brantley Dunlap (fourth grade), Jett Beattie (sixth grade), Dylan Finke (seventh grade) and Jordan Doyle (eighth grade).

Everleigh Poggas, Clay Cope, Allan Cobb, Miles Beattie, Ella Hans, Jolene Meyer, Lydia Zerr, Emelia Hans, Dariah Parsley, Charlie Hudgens and Wade Jones received subject prizes.

Aurora won a first-place medal at the science fair for the second time. She said the science fair is always something she looks forward to every winter.

“I love it,” the eighth-grader said. “It’s so much fun.”

Aurora is a member of the MCMS FCCLA chapter. Currently, she’s working on a coffee cart project in which she makes casseroles, sandwiches and muffins.

“I really like baking,” Aurora said. “It’s like a passion that I love doing.”

Julia won a first-place medal for the fourth year in a row with her Turbo Tablets project. She tested to see whether name-brand or generic ibuprofen breaks down the fastest.

“I chose this project because I play basketball and I get hurt a lot in basketball,” Julia said. “It’s nice to know what will help me.”

Dawson won a first-place medal for the second year in a row for his Does Music Affect Memory project. He had four different people take three seven-word memory tests.

“My hypothesis was that music brought a negative effect on a person’s memory,” Dawson said. “My hypothesis was partially correct.”

New Florence Wood Products, Boehringer Ingelheim, Uncle Ray’s, Ameren, CertainTeed, Fair Market, McDonalds, Lean Cuisine and Companion Animal Hospital were the sponsors of this year’s fair.

Students from all four schools in the district – Jonesburg and Montgomery City Elementary, MCMS and Montgomery County High School – participate in the fair. Jim Elder, the co-chairman of the R-II Science Fair, said he was pleased with this year’s turnout of students.

“I have been so impressed with the creativity and the ingenuity that the students came up with this year,” he said. “It’s really cool. We got the same response from our judges. We had judges who came out. They were professors at Mizzou. They had scientists from a research place that is right along I-70 in Callaway County. We had engineers from CertainTeed. We had local business owners in our towns who came out and were so impressed by what these scientists and engineers have been able to do with their science fair projects.”

Prizes were also given out to class projects. The first-place winner was the third-grade class of Anna Henke, followed by the second-grade class of Tina Harms, the pre-kindergarten class of Kristal Zerr and the third-grade class of Kateyrna Henness. All of them are from Montgomery City Elementary.

“We really appreciate all of these teachers who do these projects because it exposes so many more kids to the science fair,” Elder said.

Thurmon, who is a senior at MCHS and plans to attend the University of Central Missouri next year, won a $500 scholarship for his first-place victory in the high school division.