“I have sloppier handwriting than anyone else,” Lane Johnson said as he stood next to his neatly printed and colorfully decorated academic fair exhibit Wednesday night at the St. Joseph High School Academic Fair.

Maybe Johnson was right or maybe he was just being a bit hard on himself. Either way, his observation of his own handwriting led him to an academic/science fair exhibit idea: Does a person’s handwriting give clues to that person’s personality.

Using five guidelines outlined in the book “Talk To The Hand,” Johnson discovered it does indeed.

Forty-six high school students and 25 seventh and eight graders at St. Joseph showcased their academic and scientific talent and were judged on such factors as how much knowledge they achieved, how clearly they explained their work, creativity and in the case of science exhibits, the use of scientific method.

Some of the exhibits were miniature science lessons: The consequences of global warming, How does physics deal with basketball and the vitality of the pancreas.

“My brother has type 1 diabetes,” Haley Glockner explained as she stood beside her exhibit on the pancreas.

“I thought by doing this I would learn more about the pancreas.” And she did: her exhibit focused on the effect of blood sugar on the pancreas and if this one organ could be donated from one person to another as hearts and livers are (no, not at this time).

Treasure Craft’s exhibit explored how Pascal’s Law affects small objects.

“You always hear about Pascal’s law in relation to large objects,” Craft explained. “I wanted to see its effect on things around the house.”

Other exhibits seemed to reflect the daily headlines: What affects the price of gas, the consequences of global warming, and police brutality. Kayla Pyles’ hypothesis was that citizens’ behavior makes police use unreasonable force. But in researching her subject she found this was not always true. Like many of her classmates, Pyles’ research took time and attention to detail. She estimated she spent a lot of late night for approximately two weeks working on her project.

Other projects were spiritual in nature. Nicole Dickess’ project was on the Virgin Mary. Her hypothesis was that the Mother of Jesus does in fact appear to people. Giving simple messages of hope and faith to bring them closer to God.

“I wanted to learn more about Mary and see if the apparitions are true,” she explained. “And people have seen apparitions of her.”

Other exhibits seemed like fun: do video games help with education? Does the color of food or drink affect preference? Does music affect memory?

Tyler Walters, who served as one of the judges, said he was pleased with what he saw.

“There are some excellent projects,” he said. “I think there are definitely some district and state projects here.”

Teachers Ruth Hopkins and Billie Cogan supervised the fair this year. They said the fair is meant to teach valuable fundamentals as well as showcase the school’s talent.

“One of the big things for me is about them being able to stand up in front of somebody and give a presentation, being able to talk about a subject and explain themselves,” Hopkins said.

“This is teaching them research skills, writing skills and that it’s okay sometimes for a hypothesis to be wrong,” Cogan added.