sentences:  He flourished academically, becoming editor of the school newspaper, "El Universitano", and winning an award for literary excellence; teachers who had trained at the nearby California Institute of Technology (Caltech) honed his attention on the study of chemistry.With the family's financial difficulties deepening, Parsons began working on weekends and school holidays at the Hercules Powder Company, where he learned more about explosives and their potential use in rocket propulsion.He and Forman continued to independently explore the subject in their spare time, building and testing different rockets, sometimes with materials that Parsons had stolen from work.