Wichita ? A Wichita high school student’s keen eye and intelligence has led to some embarrassment for state education leaders and national media attention for him.

Geoffrey Stanford, a 17-year-old junior at Wichita East High School, discovered while taking a state writing test last week that the word “emission” — as in “the emission of greenhouse gases” — was spelled “omission.”

“I thought, ‘Surely they’re not talking about leaving out carbon dioxide altogether.’ It just didn’t make sense,” Stanford said. “It had to be a mistake.”

So Stanford, a linebacker and International Baccalaureate student, told English teacher Jennifer Fry. She pointed out the mistake to the district test coordinator, who alerted state education officials.

“You hate that sort of thing to happen, but it happens,” said Karla Denny, spokeswoman for the State Department of Education, which created the test. “We’re human.”

The department e-mailed a corrected version of the writing prompt to test coordinators around the state.

The error slipped by a committee of more than 30 teachers from across the state who developed the test. The five questions — writing prompts from which students must craft persuasive essays — were written almost two years ago and tested in 50 high schools last spring.

No one before Stanford had reported the error, she said. “It amazes me. This went through all the channels, and the pilot project, and nobody caught it,” said Denny, a former English teacher.

Stanford said he isn’t a fabulous proofreader but he is careful with his written work.

“I’m a stickler for grammar and vocabulary and the correct use of words,” he said. “It annoys me when I see mistakes.”

Stanford’s discovery has gained him national media attention. After it was reported on the Wichita Eagle’s Web site Friday, Stanford was inundated by media requests, phone calls, text messages and random comments.

He got more than 100 Facebook friend requests and is scheduled to appear on the Fox News Channel’s “Fox and Friends” morning show today.

“It’s been hilarious because I just never thought it would get to this point,” he said. “Some people are saying, ‘Good job,’ and some are giving me a little grief about it.”