{"id":528769,"date":"2018-02-20T07:20:16","date_gmt":"2018-02-20T14:20:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/?p=528769"},"modified":"2018-02-21T07:20:32","modified_gmt":"2018-02-21T14:20:32","slug":"in-tiny-nm-village-brilliant-7-year-old-is-one-of-schools-40-students","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2018\/02\/in-tiny-nm-village-brilliant-7-year-old-is-one-of-schools-40-students\/","title":{"rendered":"In tiny NM village, &#8216;brilliant&#8217; 7-year-old is one of school&#8217;s 40 students"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/player.vimeo.com\/video\/253990795\" width=\"771\" height=\"433\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><span data-mce-type=\"bookmark\" style=\"display: inline-block; width: 0px; overflow: hidden; line-height: 0;\" class=\"mce_SELRES_start\">\ufeff<\/span><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>She lives in the least populated place in New Mexico \u2013 fewer than 700 people spread across 2,100 square miles in Harding County in the northeast quadrant of the state.<\/p>\n<p>Her house \u2013 the same one where her mother grew up \u2013 is a block from her school, where she and 40 other children make up the entire student body from kindergarten through 12th grade.<\/p>\n<p>She loves the Future Farmers of America and can talk at length about her passion for the organization. She hopes one day, when she\u2019s older than 7, she can raise chickens.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"module align-left half type-aside\">\n<h3>About this article<\/h3>\n<p>This article is part of\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/searchlightnm.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Searchlight New Mexico\u2019s<\/a>\u00a0year-long journalistic investigation into child well-being in New Mexico. Read the series, Raising New Mexico,\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/series\/raising-new-mexico\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">by clicking here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/aside>\n<p>For reasons only she knows \u2013 and she\u2019s not telling \u2013 she likes to speak in a British accent. Last Halloween, she dressed as the queen of England.<\/p>\n<p>Who is Kate Green?<\/p>\n<p>If you ask her to describe herself in two words, those words will be \u201cweird\u201d and \u201cweird.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Weird is a popular concept with Kate, almost as dear to her as her Barbie dolls, her shelves of books and the time she spends working alongside her dad, Jake, in his woodworking shop in the family\u2019s garage.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBrilliant little kid,\u201d says Tommy Turner, superintendent of the Mosquero Municipal School District, who pastures his horses on a plot of land that abuts Kate\u2019s backyard and works with her mother, Margaret, the school secretary. \u201cShe\u2019s so analytical. Those wheels are always turning.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Kate\u2019s is a middle-America life where mom, dad and daughter walk across the street to church every Sunday morning and gather each evening for dinner and talk.<\/p>\n<p>And Kate can talk: \u201cI help my dad work all the time. We work on the fence. He bosses me around. I work in Daddy\u2019s workshop a lot. In the winter it\u2019s always warm in there and I like the way it smells.\u201d<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_528782\"  class=\"wp-caption module image alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 771px;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-large wp-image-528782\" src=\"http:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/Kate_Green3-771x514.jpg\" alt=\"Kate Green\" width=\"771\" height=\"514\" srcset=\"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/Kate_Green3-771x514.jpg 771w, https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/Kate_Green3-336x224.jpg 336w, https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/Kate_Green3-768x512.jpg 768w, https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/Kate_Green3-1170x780.jpg 1170w, https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/Kate_Green3.jpg 1200w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 771px) 100vw, 771px\" \/><p class=\"wp-media-credit\">Don Usner \/ for Searchlight New Mexico<\/p><p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Kate Green, 7, attends school in Mosquero, the least populated place in all of New Mexico.<\/p><\/div>\n<p>Mosquero is perched all alone on the flat, grassy northeastern plains. Its population in the 2000 U.S. Census was 120. Ten years later, it dropped to 93. Children here are similarly spread out; Kate\u2019s best friend lives a mile away down a dirt road.<\/p>\n<p>Kate spends a lot of time with adults, and a lot of time in her room &#8212; reading, writing stories and playing with her toys. She\u2019s content with her parents and grandparents, her vegetable garden, her bike and her replica John Deere tractor.<\/p>\n<p>The best part about living in Mosquero?<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s a small town, \u201cshe says. \u201cAnd I also like that bad guys rarely come here because there\u2019s not like a jewelry store or a gold shop.\u201d<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>Margaret, who grew up in Mosquero, and Jake, whose father is a cowboy on the nearby Bell Ranch, waited five years after marrying to have a child.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cVery planned,\u201d Jake says. \u201cI didn\u2019t know what to expect, but I didn\u2019t expect it to be this easy or this fun.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>When Kate was born, she almost immediately signaled she would be unique.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cShe was very alert, very observant,\u201d Margaret says.<\/p>\n<p>When she started talking, her personality started to bubble out.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI don\u2019t think she has ever had a bad day,\u201d says Marcie Pergeson, the teacher in the combined second- and third-grade classroom at Mosquero School. \u201cShe\u2019s very blunt. She\u2019s very opinionated. And, oh my goodness, she has the best sense of humor.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Margaret, who went away to West Texas for college and loves books, started reading to Kate almost as soon as she was born. The first book she read aloud was \u201cPride and Prejudice,\u201d begun when Kate was just 3 days old. Seven years later, Margaret has found an unexpected pleasure in motherhood.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI love that I can carry on a conversation with my child,\u201d she says. \u201cJust talk with her. It\u2019s fun.\u201d<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_528783\"  class=\"wp-caption module image alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 771px;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-large wp-image-528783\" src=\"http:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/Kate_Green_2-771x514.jpg\" alt=\"Kate Green\" width=\"771\" height=\"514\" srcset=\"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/Kate_Green_2-771x514.jpg 771w, https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/Kate_Green_2-336x224.jpg 336w, https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/Kate_Green_2-768x512.jpg 768w, https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/Kate_Green_2-1170x780.jpg 1170w, https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/Kate_Green_2.jpg 1200w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 771px) 100vw, 771px\" \/><p class=\"wp-media-credit\">Don Usner \/ for Searchlight New Mexico<\/p><p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Kate Green at school.<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Kate lives in the least populated place in New Mexico \u2013 fewer than 700 people spread across 2,100 square miles in Harding County.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":528782,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[234,125,1184],"class_list":["post-528769","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-and-analysis","tag-children","tag-education","tag-harding-county","series-raising-new-mexico"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/528769","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=528769"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/528769\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/528782"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=528769"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=528769"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=528769"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}