I may be short, but I'm not 12

hkronmueller

Being the education reporter at the Southeast Missourian is like drinking bottled water from the fountain of youth.

At least once every two weeks since I started this job in September I have been confused for a student at one school or another.

Most of the time it happens when I am walking through the halls of a high school, but a couple of weeks ago it happened in an elementary school.

I know a lot of children are taller than I am, and some days I could probably pass for a 17-year-old, but a sixth-grader? I don't think so.

Sixth-graders are 11 years old. I'm 23.

Whenever I tell anyone 30 years old or older my stories of being called a teenager they say, "You should take that as a compliment."

I say, "Maybe when I'm 30 I'll like it if someone calls me 18, but now I want to be a 23-year-old."

When I was younger, it was the other way around -- people always confused me as being older.

When I was 15 I went to visit my sister Stacey at Mizzou.

She was 20 at the time and took me and some of her friends to a dance club. While they were out on the dance floor and I was relaxing on a couch, some guy came over and sat down next to me.

He introduced himself and we started chatting.

He asked me where I was from and what I was doing at Mizzou.

Since he never asked my age I figured I would just play along until he figured out I was a mere sophomore in high school.

After about 15 minutes he asked me if I wanted to leave with him.

"Your sister won't mind," he said.

"Yeah, but my mom probably would," I replied. "I'm only 15, you know."

He sat there for a minute with a dazed look on his face and then slowly got up and walked away without saying a word.

It was the same way at my sister Jenn's wedding. As I stood in the procession line after the wedding all of Jenn's friends walked by and said hello.

"I didn't know Jenn had an older sister," one said.

"She doesn't," I explained. "I'm the baby in the family."

I don't know why I looked 23 when I was 18 or why I now appear 11.

And it's not just one person who thinks I'm a teenager, it's a lot of people -- including the governor of Missouri.

At Jackson High School a few months ago, Gov. Bob Holden was giving a speech about his new accountability plan.

After the speech, his public relations man introduced me to him.

"Governor Holden, this is Heather Kronmueller from the Southeast Missourian over in Cape," he said.

Holden looked sort of confused.

"Oh," he finally said with a chuckle. "I thought you were a student here."

One of my friends has a theory about all of this confusion. She thinks people just glance and see that I'm a 5-foot-tall girl with a ponytail and assume I must be a teenager.

Last weekend I proved that theory wrong.

My boyfriend and I were walking through the halls of Farmington High School when we were stopped by two teachers on lunch duty.

"Do you two go to school here?" they asked, noticing we were lacking hall passes.

"Um, no. My dad's the principal here," Jeremiah said.

"Oh. Sorry," one of the teachers said.

As we walked away I whispered to Jeremiah, "At least I'm not the only one."

Maybe my 30-something friends are right. I should take it as a compliment and politely inform the person of my real age.

On the other hand I could always use it to my advantage like Drew Barrymore in the movie "Never Been Kissed" and do an undercover piece on life in high school.

Heather Kronmueller is a staff writer for the Southeast Missourian.