This is the 16th of 25 profiles about The Gazette’s Best and Brightest Class of 2016.

One afternoon after a swim meet, Xavier Bower saw spots before his eyes, and slid to the concrete in a coughing fit that produced blood. It was a severe allergy or asthma attack, something he has lived with all his life.

But he didn’t give up swimming, just adjusted his medication. His determination to compete in varsity swimming for Palmer High School underlines how he approaches life in general: just don’t sweat it.

“The only way to get through some things is accepting reality for what it is and let it wash over you,” Bower said. “I don’t mean to be cheesy, but it’s mind over matter.”

Bower will definitely be sweating the small stuff this fall when he attends the Institute of Molecular Engineering at the University of Chicago. Molecular engineering is a cutting-edge field that uses synthetic molecular building blocks to impact things like medicine, quantum computing and the environment. “I’ll be part of a pioneering effort to understand how things function at the tiniest scale of matter,” he said.

“When he told me what he was going to major in, I told him, ‘Honey I’m not sure what that is,'” his mother, Stephanie Bower, said with a laugh. “He is smart but doesn’t take anything for granted. He just loves to know things and every obstacle he works out.

For example, he writes music and plays the violin, but because of scheduling couldn’t fit in orchestra, so he performs with the Pikes Peak Philharmonic, which practices in the evenings.

When he first gave tutoring a try as a freshman, he wasn’t so thrilled. But soon he was hooked on helping elementary kids with reading at the Children’s Literacy Center.

Bower is president of the Palmer High chemistry club. The members give demonstrations to area students to inspire interest in science. He has learned much about teaching and also about himself because kids are so frank, he says.

He has taken an adjunct math class at Colorado College, and is using that expertise in problem solving to help Palmer students in a tutoring program.

“A lot of kids don’t want to be there, and you have to develop a relationship and find out what they are interested in and relate it to math,” Bower said. “I never give up on anybody.”

His volunteer work for a tutoring program at St. Patrick’s Catholic Church, is the highlight of his week, he says. He gets to work with a variety of age groups. “I like to inspire kids to realize that learning is fun.”

He believes he might take all this further some day by becoming a college professor so he can do scientific life-saving research and also teach.